Man Fails Paternity Test Because His Unborn Brother Is The Father Of His Child

#1

How could a man fail a paternity test due to his dead twin? It turns out a 34-year-old actually absorbed DNA from his dead twin while in the womb!

His twin never made it out of the womb. This case is being called the first paternity test fooled by a human chimera, which is someone who has extra genes due to absorption from a twin that was lost in pregnancy early on.

#2

Could there be more?

It turns out that one in eight single childbirths are actually believed to start as multiple pregnancies and once in a while the cells from the miscarried siblings become absorbed by the twin who survives.

The couple found out that their child's blood type didn't match either of theirs, so they took a paternity test. They had used a fertility clinic for help and now feared that sperm donors may have gotten mixed up.

Then they did a genetic ancestry test. The test revealed that the man was not the father but was the uncle of the child!

He had 10% of a genetic sperm match to the child. His sperm genes were different than his saliva genes. The real father, technically, is actually the man's unborn twin!

#3

There was another case where a woman discovered her blood cells had one set of genes while her ovaries had a different set. The woman gave birth to two sons, both produced from the eggs which came from the ovaries, thus holding different genes than her.

The actual mother was yet another twin who was never actually born.

#4

Finding the chimeras are very difficult. Genes are only found detectably in a few organs. It may end up becoming more and more common though, as fertility treatments and clinics are becoming utilized more often, which can lead to a number of births.