VIDEO: The Hug That Helped Change Medicine

When it comes to twins, they have both fascinated and intrigued us for centuries – their special connection is simply engrossing!

Back in 1995, a premature baby was saved by the hug of her twin sister.

Everybody knows that twins have a special connection, but who knew that connection could save their lives?!

Read Kyrie and Brielle’s story below, provided by reshareworthy.com.

Their hug helped change medicine and saved one of their lives. Back in 1995, twin girls Kyrie and Brielle were born prematurely. Each only weighed about two pounds at birth. When they were 3 weeks old, Brielle was struggling to breathe and her health was deteriorating. A nurse decided to put them in the same incubator to see what would happen and something remarkable happened.

Kyrie put her arm around her sister and Brielle immediately began to stabilize.

A newspaper photographer happened to be at the hospital at that very moment and took a photo called “The rescuing hug”, which became famous around the world. Not only did the twins being together revive Brielle, it taught doctors about the amazing healing power of touch and changed how they treat infants.

According to Wikipedia, twin studies are utilized in an attempt to determine how much of a particular trait is attributable to either genetics or environmental influence. These studies compare monozygotic and dizygotic twins for medical, genetic, or psychological characteristics to try to isolate genetic influence from epigenetic and environmental influence.

Twins that have been separated early in life and raised in separate households are especially sought-after for these studies, which have been used widely in the exploration of human nature. Classical twin studies are now being supplemented with molecular genetic studies which identify individual genes.

Among dizygotic twins, in rare cases, the eggs are fertilized at different times with two or more acts of sexual intercourse, either within one menstrual cycle (superfecundation) or, even more rarely, later on in the pregnancy (superfetation). This can lead to the possibility of a woman carrying fraternal twins with different fathers (that is, half-siblings).

This phenomenon is known as heteropaternal superfecundation. One 1992 study estimates that the frequency of heteropaternal superfecundation among dizygotic twins, whose parents were involved in paternity suits, was approximately 2.4%.

Dizygotic twins from biracial couples can sometimes be mixed twins, which exhibit differing ethnic and racial features. One such pairing was born in Germany in 2008 to a white father from Germany and a black mother from Ghana.

Heterotopic pregnancy is an exceedingly rare type of dizygotic twinning in which one twin implants in the uterus as normal and the other remains in the fallopian tube as an ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancies must be resolved because they can be life-threatening to the mother. However, in most cases, the intrauterine pregnancy can be salvaged.

Among monozygotic twins, in extremely rare cases, twins have been born with different sexes (one male, one female). When monozygotic twins are born with different sexes it is because of chromosomal defects.