Twins Fighting In Womb: Video Shows Birth of Sibling Rivalry with New High-Tech 'Cinematic MRI'

Sibling rivalry begins even earlier than you think, as a new viral video of twins fighting in the womb seems to prove.

Using a new high-quality MRI technology dubbed "cinematic MRI," the video making the rounds shows two twins already vying for personal space in the womb, and apparently kicking one another to get it. The high-tech monitor of the "cinematic MRI" allows doctors to see everything in far greater detail than previous scanning technology, Dr. Marisa Taylor-Clarke of Imperial College's Robert Steiner MR Unit in London told Reuters.

But the "cinematic MRI" does more than just provide stunning footage. Doctors also use the new technology to diagnose how fetuses are affected by twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), which is a "dangerous condition in which one identical twin siphons blood away from the other," the doctor said.

As twins share a placenta in the womb, it is a common complication that their blood supplies become connected, causing the condition.

"A lot of the so-called videos in the womb are very processed, so they do a lot of reconstructing and computer work afterwards. These are the raw images that are acquired immediately," Taylor-Clarke told New Scientist to explain why she uses the technique to study TTTS.

"We haven't really been able to see before in such real-time complete pictures how twins interact and what this cine lets us do is see their positions in relation to each other and how much space they have, how much space they occupy, and how they might move around and push each other out of the way," Taylor-Clarke explained.

She added: "So that's something that you can see snapshots of on ultrasound and small parts of it, but you don't get the view of the whole room, as it were, the room being the womb."

New Scientist notes that while traditional MRI captures still images, "cinematic MRI" puts the images' frames together in a fashion more akin to real-time video.

According to the Twin To Twin Transfusion Syndrome Foundation, the illness strips the "donor" twin of nutrients vital to its development, and can also put strain on the heart of the twin receiving excess nutrients.

Taylor-Clarke and her team of doctors have now studied 24 pairs of twins using the new technology. "Cinematic-MRI" has aided breakthroughs in more intricately detecting differences in brain development between TTTS twins, which the team hopes will help them predict developmental problems prior to birth and help in more readily preparing parents for the birth of their children.

According to the Huffington Post, the 4-d resolution of the "cinematic-MRI" footage has also given doctors a more detailed look at some more normal developmental milestones, such as deciphering whether a fetus is yawning, hiccupping, swallowing, stretching, or simply opening its mouth.

Although, according to Nadja Reissland of Durham University's department of Psychology, fetuses don't actually yawn because they're tired. "Instead, the frequency of yawning in the womb may be linked to the maturing of the brain early in gestation," she said.