What is a DOUBLE Uterus!? #shorts (Uterine Didelphys)

Uterine Didelphys is a "muellerian abnormality" that occurs in embryo development. The uterus doesn't grow all the way together and, instead, stays as 2 separate uteri! #shorts

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[ama.mensss]

The fact that she’s more entertaining than my bio teacher. ❤️😂 her videos are really easy to understand

[ItsAsparageese]

For fun, a tale on the subject of unusual organs: About a decade ago, I was working for a veterinarian, and one patient was a cat with persistent vaginitis. Larry the cat (yep, that was her name, was a reference to some inside joke in her family) would respond to antibiotics, but then the discharge would just come back after a while. Cats don't scar much, so it was hard to tell if Larry had been spayed since she had been adopted as an adult with unknown history -- but since she'd never had a heat over her several years with this family prior to the vaginitis issue, it was always assumed she was spayed.

Anyway, the vet decided it was time to go ahead and do an exploratory surgery to figure out what was going on a little deeper inside Larry's vagina. (I don't remember if we'd already done imaging and couldn't identify anything, or if we didn't do x-ray first for some reason; this vet is an incredibly intuitive and gifted diagnostician and often made judgment calls that I didn't know the reasoning for, but she consistently found her way right to the answers with great efficiency.) The owners consented of course, so we got in there and took a look.

Feline uteruses are V-shaped, with each "horn" of the uterus acting essentially like a human fallopian tube, to very oversimplifiedly give a visual. In Larry's case, we did indeed find a uterus -- but at the top of it, instead of two separate ovaries, we found ONE enlarged weird mutant ovary, with BOTH horns of the uterus attached to it! The closed loop created by this also had Larry's poor bladder/ureters entangled in it, so we freed that up in the process of completing the spay. We'll never know if this was originally a redundant set of organs that had been missed during a spay when Larry was young (the vet reinforced to me that this is why vets need to feel around and check for a second set of organs every time, because once in a while you find one!) or if Larry had only ever had this set and simply didn't menstruate* as a result of the abnormality.

Anyway, we took out the giant mutant ovary and the uterus with it, and the vaginitis resolved entirely after that. And that's the story of Larry the cat getting spayed. 😆 I still have a crappy picture of the mutant ovary somewhere on my Facebook lol. Thanks for coming to my TED talk!

**Very belated edit: I've since learned that "menstruate" is the wrong term here, and the "heat" phase cats go through is physiologically very different. Turns out only a couple mammal species besides humans (and other great apes) menstruate at all! IIRC it's elephant shrews and a couple kinds of bats, but I could be mixing up various episodes of the amazing Let's Learn Everything podcast lol. Anyway, that's my correction, have a nice day!*

[smithn.wesson]

How come we can learn more in 35 seconds from Mama Doctor Jones, than 3 to 5 months with a college professor?!?!

[Sookielein]

That just leaves me with so many more questions...I think we need a in depth video!

[Shawna]

My sister has this. First baby was in her left uterus, now she’s pregnant with a little one in her right uterus. ❤️

[katiesilva]

I'm so glad you did this! I saw another video you did on UD. I was diagnosed with this in my early 20s. Scared poopless at first, I can tell you it's not that big of a deal! I was able to give birth which was something I never thought I'd be able to do! I had a c section because my daughter was breech, and she was born early at 34 weeks 5 days, but she was totally healthy and wonderful! She's now almost 8 and is a sturdy healthy beautiful girl! 🥰

[Sumakudolve]

I have two as well, confirmed by a Gyocologist, but I only have my period once every month, instead of two in the same month. (I'm 14 years old, almost hospitalized every month by sickness up to my period.)

[purplexninjamom]

Would you consider doing a series of three separate videos on the third, second and third trimester of pregnancy?
I´m 11 weeks pregnant and I think people like me would greatly benefit from a Mama Doctor Jones "in-depth guide to pregnancy" :D
Of course people can read stuff on the Internet and so on, but I still think it would be a great project that might help pregnant women who are overwhelmed, confused or unsure what´s true and what´s not, especially in Covid times.

[janer]

I have a septum in mine! I had well over a dozen ultrasounds during my pregnancy to make sure baby/uterus/cervix were all behaving...and thankfully I ended up carrying to term and having a healthy little one.

[jessicadaugherty]

My sister is one of those unique people with a heart shaped uterus 👍🏻

[manaash]

This is me! I only just learned how it happens in development in the recent few weeks. I have a uterine septum (and had a vaginal one that was snipped a while back). So I have two cervixes, making paps so super fun. Lol

[suzanneleshovsky]

As someone with a bicornuate uterus THANK YOU for your sharing your knowledge!!

[mrswhite]

My mom didn't find out she had a "double uterus" until she was in her 50's and started going to a gyno I referred her to. It's so interesting to talk to previous generations of women and hear the things their doctors never discussed with them. There were pregnancy-related things I experienced that she did too but would have never known the cause of if I hadn't brought it up during my experience and shared my doctor's insights.

[jessicacraig]

Puuuleeeaaasseee do an episode on this! I have a longitudinal septum and I don’t feel like there is enough information out there that’s presented in an approachable fashion. Other women I’ve met who have this thought they were the only ones, and I think it would be incredible helpful !❤️

[Ellielulu_Ellielu]

I vaguely remember hearing about double uteri, but I never knew *how* they happened! Kinda reminds me as to why people can have cleft chins--

[malice]

Extra/missing organs runs in my family. My aunt has two complete sets of internal reproductive organs, my mom only has one sinus and my grandma had three kidneys.

[theartisticautist]

I love gynecology 😍 as a medstudent I definitely want to look more into it!

[tiggert]

I learned about this when I went to the doctors to get a check up when I had an irregular period. It came as a huge surprise. I knew I had been born with one kidney but didn't know about the double uterus.

[monicag]

I'm definitely down for these quick-fire YouTube shorts with fun biology facts!! Great way to diversify the types of content being produced :)

[colleenleung]

I had 2 miscarriages in the past 1.5 years. Only after 2 saline sonograms followed by a hysteroscopy, was it discovered I had a partial septum.
At the same time, my sister was very late diagnosed with fibroids and ended up needing to have a hysterectomy at age 39.
I would love if you would do a video on or speak about saline sonograms and spread the word.
It seems such an important and relatively easy part of female's health that could prevent so much heartache and medical issues.
6+ transvaginal ultrasounds in the last year and an MRI of the area 3 years prior (adenomyosis diagnosis) did not show the partial septum, which the doctors are now accounting my losses to the septum.
I don't want anyone to have to find out about their septate uterus through losses. Thanks for all you do in helping people!