Pa. mom's infected tooth saves identical twin girls

BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. (AP) — A western Pennsylvania woman says her abscessed tooth helped her safely deliver identical twin girls who had a dangerous prenatal condition.

Lauren Lawton, of Bridgeville, tells WPXI that her twin daughters, Mackenzie and Anna, had a rare condition in which they shared a placenta. That means one of the girls was getting too much blood and the other not enough — a condition that can lead to birth defects or death.

Instead, Lawton was forced into labor at 24 weeks because of the infected tooth — which also kept the negative effects from the shared placenta from developing fully.

The girls weighed about a pound each when they were delivered by C-section — and then needed surgeries to correct open heart valves. Both are now developing normally and 7 months old.