Birth of twin after 3-year gap

Creating medical history of sorts, an embryological twin was born after a gap of three years at a fertility clinic here.

A baby boy was born in the clinic three years after his twin sister was born in 2005.

The baby boy, Vinayak, was born on Wednesday after his twin sister, Ishani was much earlier born on October 3, 2005, according to Dr Siddhartha Chatterjee of the clinic.

The achievement was possible following five years of experiments and research by the doctor  after a Kolkata-based couple Debayan Choudhuri and Rubai Choudhuri approached him for help as they were childless even after five years of marriage.

The doctor said "sperm and ovum were taken from the couple and three embryos were formed in the laboratory of the clinic in January, 2005".

One of them was separated and placed in Rubai's womb and she gave birth to a female child, Ishani, in October that year, the doctor said.

The other two embryos were preserved in liquid nitrogen in a deep freezer. Three years later, when the couple wanted another child, one of the preserved embryos was taken out of the freezer and inserted in the mother's womb.

To a question, the doctor said the births even though they took place at an interval of three years could be called that of embryological twins as they were fertilised at the same time in the mother's womb.

"It is unique in the sense that the two births were separated by three years," Chatterjee said, adding that such type of births had taken place earlier also.