Ohio mom’s monoamniotic twins are 1 in 10,000

Mother’s Day came early for Sarah Thistlethwaite, but the Ohio woman isn’t complaining.

After 57 days of bed rest and monitoring, Thistlethwaite gave birth at Akron General Medical Center to twin daughters, Jenna and Jillian, who shared the same amniotic sac and placenta. The Friday delivery, by Drs. Melissa Mancuso and Katherine Wolfe of Akron’s Children’s Hospital, was by caesarean section.

“This is the rarest of all such deliveries,” Amy Kilgore, a spokeswoman for Akron General, told the Los Angeles Times on Monday. Identical twins who share an amniotic sac and placenta are known as monoamniotic twins. Such births occur about once every 10,000 pregnancies, Kilgore said.

The mother and the babies are doing fine, Kilgore said.

Sarah and Bill Thistlethwaite of Orrville, Ohio, also have a son, Jaxon, whose first birthday was Jan. 27. Orrville is about 20 miles from Akron.

Sarah Thistlethwaite is expected to leave the hospital on Tuesday, while the babies will be at the children’s hospital for two to four weeks, Kilgore said.

Jenna, at 4 pounds, 2 ounces, and 17 inches, is older by 48 seconds than Jillian, who is 3 pounds, 13 ounces, and 17.5 inches. When the doctors lifted the babies to show to Mom and Dad at delivery, the girls had grabbed onto each other’s hands.

“They’re already best friends,” Sarah Thistlethwaite, 32, told the Akron Beacon Journal. “I can’t believe they were holding hands. That’s amazing.”