a baby is born with two mouths and two tongues

THE ESSENTIAL

• Diprosopia is a rare congenital disease where parts of the face (or the whole face) are duplicated
• Only 35 human cases have been reported in the literature since 1900
• A little girl is born with two mouths, teeth and a second tongue

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The process of embryonic, then fetal, development is a succession of biological stages so complex that sometimes babies are born with astonishing malformations. This is particularly the case of a little girl born with two mouths, recently reported in the BMJ. Diprosopia (or cranofacial duplication) a congenital disease rare where parts of the face (or even the whole face) are duplicated, it was born at 40 weeks and 4 days by vaginal route without any complications. Only 35 human cases have been reported in the literature since 1900.

A “little language” synchronized with the first

In the third trimester of pregnancy, a mass on the right side of the jaw was detected during an ultrasound. Doctors thought it could be a congenital cyst, teratoma, or fibrous dysplosis (congenital bone disease, editor’s note). AT at birth, they actually found that the little girl had a second mouth measuring between 1 and 2 cm on the right side of the face, with a small oral cavity with “small teeth” and an “small accessory language”Which reproduced the same movements as his real language. “At follow-up appointment at 2 weeks of age, the newborn was healthy, eating well and gaining weight without oral incompetenceSay the doctors.

A surgical team removed this second mouth. An examination 6 months after the operation revealed that the sutures had healed perfectly. The baby was feeding normally but could no longer move the right corner of the mouth, possibly due to the section of a nerve.

An anomaly in the craniofacial arrangement

Diprosopia results from abnormal protein activity Sonic hedgehog (SHH), which plays a major role in craniofacial arrangement during embryonic development. This protein is notably responsible for the width of the facial features.

In extreme cases like the one reported by the BMJ, this leads to a widening of the features and a duplication of the facial structure. Most infants with diprosopia are stillborn. Few cases show humans surviving for more than a few minutes or hours like this little girl.

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