Dermoid Cysts and Vanishing Twins
A client writes: I have a question about vanishing twins, wondering if you could answer that for me. I have a 10 month old boy. When I got pregnant with him, about five weeks into my pregnancy, I had an ultrasound and they told me that I had two sacs and that it was twins. At the time they couldn’t get a heartbeat, so I went back to the Dr. and she told me then that I had one baby.
The other was what they called a vanishing twin. She told me that the one twin absorbed the other?! Anyway the other sac disappeared and I have one baby. Since all that, I have seen several stories on the Discovery Channel that talked about if one twin absorbed another one, that later on when the surviving twin reached the age of six, seven, or eight. . .that they could develop a tumor in their stomach where they had absorbed the other baby.
This doesn’t even sound right. I can’t figure out how this would or could happen, but I have seen a lot of stories on this. I wanted to ask someone who might really know about this. If you could help, I would really appreciate it. Thank you, Margaret
Answer: I searched the Discovery Channel for this episode and could not find it Margaret. I wouldn’t be concerned, but do note it in his history so he knows of it. On rare occasion one twin can absorb another, but that’s not usually how it works. A close friend of mine has a vanishing twin (I never told him this.)
I could tell because he had what is called a dermoid cyst on his forehead. A dermoid cyst is a growth that has every conceivable type of cell in it. He actually had a little piece of nail growing out the center of the cyst. He had it removed, but some of it grew back!
I have heard where a vanishing twin will grow inside the abdomen. Most are just absorbed by the mother’s body and are a part of the mom’s uterus. This happens all the time in veterinary medicine. Once I did have a client who was taking oral HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin) spray, and the spray enticed the benign dermoid cyst in her uterus to grow and turn into cancer.
Also, watch for those personality characteristics that seem to occur often in the vanishing twin syndrome and work on building self-love, self-worth, and self-esteem from an early age. I’ve seen some kid’s books out there on that recently. I’d love it if you could tell me which ones you find useful. I’ll put your recommendations on my Vanishing Twin webpage.
Enjoy him. Life is precious. It was the twin’s decision to come into your body and to leave, giving your son some very special spiritual lessons. They usually hang around for the life of the child. I test that his twin was a female. I bet he will like women more than men in this lifetime and search for a woman “just like him.” You watch, and keep in touch. Namaste. Denice
© 2006 by Dr. Denice M. Moffat (Updated 2/18/23)