BELATED TWIN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1102, 29 May 1913, Page 4

BELATED TWIN.

ENCORE BABY SIX WEEKS AFTER THE FIRST.

London, April 14,

All the known baby records have been beaten by the wife of a working man at Barrow, a small manufacturing village near Clitheroe, Lanes. On February 24th of this year, she gave birth to a son. Both mother and child ‘‘did well,” but interesting developments seemed highly probable, and yesterday another child, a girl, was born.

The existence of a baby boy who is only six weeks older than his baby sister threatens to raise problems which will make the Barrow babies famous. From the medical point of view they are twins. Regarded from the cold standpoint of Greenwich time, they have missed their twinsbip by six full weeks. Is yesterday’s arrival a belated twin, or is she a separate child —a sort of encore baby, as it were ? Here is a question which will keep the Insurance Commissioners busy for a week. On the arrival of baby No. 1, the lather probably applied for the maternity benefit of 30s. Now, according to the non-twin section, he is entitled to receive another 30s. On the other hand, if these are twins, the second baby should be thrown in, for twins count as one, according to the Insurance Commissioners.

The house surgeons at Queen Charlotte’s Lying-in Hospital told an Express representative last night that the case of the Barrow babies was most remarkable, but they agreed that the children were twins.

‘‘Cases of belated twin births are known,” said one of the doctors, ‘‘but the fact that such a long period as six weeks has elapsed between the two births this case extremely interesting.”