For twins, sibling rivalry starts before they’re even born.
Strikingly clear video appears to show identical twins kicking each other and fighting for space inside their mother’s womb.
The images are from an MRI scan taken at London’s Center for Fetal Care, Reuters reported.
“What this lets us do is see their positions in relation to each other and how much space they occupy, and how they might move around and push each other out of the way,” Dr. Marisa Taylor-Clarke said.
The high-tech scan — which produces more detailed pictures than conventional MRIs — is used to learn more about twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), in which one twin takes blood from the other, called the “donor” twin.
“One of the problems with the imbalances of blood flow is that if you get a sudden shift of blood from one twin to the other, that can cause brain injury,” Dr. Taylor-Clarke told Reuters. “So it can cause stroke or hemorrhage in one or both of the twins’ brains.
“MRI can pick up signs of brain injury much earlier and in much greater detail than ultrasound can at the moment.”
A twin who loses too much blood can suffer also stunted growth.
In severe cases, TTTS can cause death.
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