The world’s most famous conjoined twins are rumoured to be pregnant, leaving well wishers to speculate how they could have a biological baby.
Abby and Brittany Hensel first became famous when they appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show in 1996, which led to a reality TV series, Abby & Brittany, in 2012.
This week, the sisters shared an intriguing video on TikTok which featured a series of mocked-up ‘breaking news’ headlines, the last of which was: ‘Married and baby on the way’.
Fans were quick to offer their congratulations, speculating on whether the twins from Minnesota are pregnant. The 34-year-olds are extremely rare dicephalus twins, with two heads and hearts but a single body from the waist down, including their reproductive organs.
As the left twin, Brittany can’t feel anything on her right side and as the right, Abby has no sensation on her left but their limbs move instinctively together. It is thought the graduate teachers, who receive one pay check as they work in the same fourth and fifth grade classrooms, could therefore conceive conventionally. The twins have never discussed their sex lives.
World-famous conjoined twins spark pregnancy rumours with video
Abby, left, married her husband Josh in 2021
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Image:
Joshua Bowling/Facebook)
Their ability to carry and deliver a child safely is not known but there are cases of conjoined twins in history having babies. In 2021 Charity Gutierrez-Vazquez gave birth to a baby girl in Seattle, at the University of Washington Medical Center where she and her twin sister Kathleen were delivered 12 years before.
The twins were born attached from the breastbone to the pelvis, with one leg each and a third fused leg. But Charity and Kathleen were separated when they were seven months old, in an operation that took 31 hours and involved nearly 30 doctors, nurses and support staff.
There is a case dating back to the 1900s that involves a successful pregnancy in twins that remained conjoined. A 2001 report by medics at the Atlanta Medical Centre in Georgia told how Rosa Blazek successfully conceived.
Dicephalus twins, who have a single body from the waist down, are very rare
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Image:
Alamy Stock Photo)
Rosa and her sister Josepha, born in 1878, were monogenital pygopagus twins, meaning they were joined at the base of spine and pelvis with separate vaginas. Writing in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the doctors said: “The twins recalled that early in her pregnancy, Rosa experienced hyperemesis gravidarum but Josepha was spared. Josepha continued to menstruate from her side of their shared vagina throughout Rosa’s pregnancy and until approximately week 32.”
It is thought Abby or Brittany would be the first female dicephalic twin to have a biological child. In an interview as teenagers, the sisters spoke of their desire to become mothers. “Yeah, we are going to be moms one day but we don’t want to talk about how it’s going to work yet,” said Abby, with Brittany adding: “We’re going to be great moms.”
Abby married combat medic Josh Bowling in a quiet ceremony in 2021, with the nuptials only becoming public this March, after which the couple shared moments from their wedding including their first dance to Adele’s Rolling in the Deep, which went viral on TikTok. Josh is already dad to daughter Isabella.