Woman delivers twins 5 weeks apart in Tennessee.

In Knoxville, Tennessee, a woman has safely given birth to twins—five weeks apart. This process, which rarely happens, is called an interval delivery.


According to WBIR, Kristen Miller was attending church when her water broke at 22 weeks. At the hospital, doctors did their best to keep her son Micah in the womb for 14 more days, which would have brought her pregnancy term to 24 weeks, the youngest a baby can survive outside the uterus. (A full term pregnancy is 40 weeks, but anytime after 38 weeks is usually fair game.)

Micah’s delivery went smoothly, but his sister Madelyn was still in utero, even though doctors had expected her to arrive with her brother. So the University of Tennessee Medical Center staff waited and did what they could to delay her birth for as long as they could.