Twin sisters give birth on the same day in Turku

Twin sisters gave birth on the same day at Turku University Hospital, an unusual coincidence that a professor says was chance, Yle reports.

Midwife Johanna Jahnsson was present at both births. She said the mothers were surprised: one was already in labour when the other began having contractions. The sisters had joked beforehand about whether their babies might arrive on the same day, despite having different due dates. One baby was born before its due date and the other after it.

The mothers, who are not identical twins, did not want to be interviewed but gave Jahnsson permission to describe what happened. She said she had heard of similar cases abroad but not in Finland.

The coincidence has prompted discussion on social media about whether twins share an unusual connection. Jaakko Kaprio, a professor of genetic epidemiology who has studied twins, said there is no scientific evidence for telepathy between them. Individual cases are interesting, he said, but cannot support scientific generalisations.

Kaprio said the timing was rare but not supernatural. The sisters being the same age is a more likely explanation than their being twins, he said. The age at which a person has a first child is partly hereditary, so siblings from the same family may tend to have children at relatively similar ages.

Turku University Hospital recorded nearly 250 more births from January to September than during the same period last year. The day the sisters gave birth, 17 babies were born at the hospital. In August, 405 babies were born there, the highest monthly total in more than 10 years.