Twins Vie for Territory in MRI Video - New Technology

An amazing video of twins fighting in the womb was revealed during an MRI, according to a Dec. 3 report from International Science . This detailed new video taken at the London Center for Fetal Care showed that these siblings began fighting even before they were born.

The advanced MRI scan at London's Center for Fetal Care called "cinematic MRI" is typically used to observe Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTT).This ocurrs when one twin takes too much blood and deprives the other twin, whose growth can then become stunted. This can be corrected surgically in utero.
Dr. Maris Taylor-Clark of the London Center said,"We haven't really been able to see before, in such real-time, complete pictures, how twins interact. What this lets us do is see their positions in relation to each other and how much space they occupy, and how they move around and push each other out of the way.  That's something that you can get snapshots of on ultrasound, small slices of it, but you don't get the view of the whole womb."

 

It is incredibly interesting to observe the twins fighting in the womb and all the other things they do while sharing the same real estate. The MRI can even tell if the twins sustain any type of brain injury during their in womb fighting. Hopefully this new technology will help doctors learn more about TTTS, so that perhaps they can help keep it from happening in the future when mothers are expecting twins. Until then, it will provide an interesting glimpse into the early twin interactions before birth.