Children are hers, but DNA says different

[summer]

Psychology Today

It should have been a routine paternity test. In late 2002 Lydia Fairchild—a mother of two and pregnant with a third child—applied to the state of Washington for welfare assistance. Because she already received child support from her sometime boyfriend, Jamie Townsend, state law required a court hearing to determine how much welfare support she was eligible for. The state demanded a paternity test as well, to prove Townsend was the father, so he and Fairchild both submitted cells from a cheek swab. A few weeks later, Fairchild got a call from the social services department. Officials there wanted to chat. In person.

When she arrived, officials shut the door. Fairchild sensed hostility and says they peppered her with odd, insinuating questions. Finally, they revealed the reason for the interrogation. The DNA test had proved Townsend the father. But it ruled Fairchild out as the mother—and, she says, the state no longer believed the children were really hers.

Stunned, Fairchild drove home and dug up her children’s birth certificates, as well as pictures of herself during her earlier pregnancies. She called her mother and broke down crying. The state meanwhile had her submit DNA to a second lab. Within weeks, it confirmed the results from the first lab.

Things got messy after that, as a routine court case deteriorated into a probe of Fairchild’s relationship to her children. State prosecutors didn’t know if she’d acted as a surrogate or perhaps even abducted the children, and Fairchild was afraid the state would investigate her for welfare fraud. She also feared social services would take her children away, and she made furtive arrangements to hide them if need be.

The judge in the case hoped Fairchild’s impending due date might clear things up. He appointed a witness to monitor the birth from the delivery room and to watch blood being drawn from Fairchild and her baby, for more tests. Fairchild agreed to this—but once again failed the test. Her DNA indicated that the baby who’d just emerged from her birth canal wasn’t hers.

Prosecutors were dumbfounded. One of them began searching the medical literature and came across an eerily similar case from 1998, involving a woman in Boston who needed a kidney transplant. She and her three sons had undergone DNA testing to find a suitable donor. Instead, they found out that she couldn’t possibly be the mother of two of them. Genetically, in fact, they appeared to be the offspring of her husband and her brother, the boys’ uncle.

On a hunch, her doctors examined the DNA in a thyroid nodule she’d had removed years before. Oddly, the thyroid DNA matched the DNA of all three sons. From this lead, doctors determined that the woman had a rare condition called chimerism; due to a prenatal twist of fate, she was a genetic blend of two people with different cells. As a result, the cells in some tissues (her skin and blood) and those in other tissues (her thyroid and reproductive organs) had different DNA.

After this revelation, Fairchild submitted more cells for DNA testing, but this time from all over her body, including her cervix. The plan worked. The cervical DNA looked different from the skin and blood DNA she’d submitted before—but it matched her children’s DNA perfectly. Like the Massachusetts woman, Fairchild was declared a chimera, and after 16 months of legal hell, her children were officially hers again.

Chimerism is a strange beast. Scientifically, it’s the persistence of cells from two (or more) people in one body. Firm numbers remain elusive, but most—if not all—humans are probably a little chimeric, since mothers and fetuses commonly exchange cells during pregnancy. Such chimeric cells can invade organs throughout the body, including the brain, and scientists have found tantalizing links between chimerism and autoimmune diseases, in which the body’s immune system attacks its own tissue. Beyond strictly medical issues, chimerism also raises psychological questions about child development, sexual identity, mother-child bonding, and even what constitutes the self.

Large-scale chimerism, à la Lydia Fairchild, occurs when a fraternal twin vanishes inside the womb during the first weeks of pregnancy. Fraternal twins come from two separate eggs and therefore have different DNA, like regular siblings. Sometimes, one fraternal twin “consumes” the other by absorbing its cells.

The resulting singleton baby is a mosaic of different DNA in different organs. A chimera from one male and one female twin can become a hermaphrodite; if twins are the same sex, the child might have patches of skin or eyes of different colors, but otherwise will probably appear normal. In the absence of extensive DNA testing, he or she will probably never know.

Such stealthiness makes it hard to determine how prevalent chimerism is. A few scientists claim that one-quarter of all twins end up being singletons, but most cite far lower numbers. Regardless, the number of chimeras is probably growing: In vitro fertilization increases the odds of having fraternal twins by about thirtyfold and is also associated with an increased risk of chimerism.

[decemberwedding07]

I had no idea this was possible. Whoa.

[thejackpot]

Wow, that is so interesting. I can't imagine the torture that she has gone through at the hands of the state.

[Deleted]

I saw a dateline special on this years ago

[caden]

That poor woman. I can't even imagine how stressful that was.

In vitro fertilization increases the odds of having fraternal twins by about thirtyfold and is also associated with an increased risk of chimerism.

Lovely. I already wonder about the stagnant gene pool I passed down. Now I can add "possibly ate your triplet in utero" to the medical issues list.

[Deleted]

shit like this helps me to understand how the ancient peoples attributed seasons and phases of the moon to gods getting into fights.

[Deleted]

 My eyes are two different colors.  I wonder if I'm a sibling eater?

I wonder if anyone has ever been incorrectly ruled out as a suspect in a criminal case this way?  I guess it's better than an innocent going to prison if we didn't have DNA, but still unsettling that we rely on it so heavily when it's available (at least that's what TV tells me we do).

[smock]

So how long until there's a Law & Order about this?

[Miss Phryne Fisher]

I saw a whole special on Discovery about this! It was a British mom and she had something like 4 kids that tested as not hers, one that did. It was so fascinating.

[aurora]

Apr 7, 2013 15:58:47 GMT -5 summer said:

...


Large-scale chimerism, à la Lydia Fairchild, occurs when a fraternal twin vanishes inside the womb during the first weeks of pregnancy. Fraternal twins come from two separate eggs and therefore have different DNA, like regular siblings. Sometimes, one fraternal twin “consumes” the other by absorbing its cells.

The resulting singleton baby is a mosaic of different DNA in different organs. A chimera from one male and one female twin can become a hermaphrodite; if twins are the same sex, the child might have patches of skin or eyes of different colors, but otherwise will probably appear normal. In the absence of extensive DNA testing, he or she will probably never know.

Such stealthiness makes it hard to determine how prevalent chimerism is. A few scientists claim that one-quarter of all twins end up being singletons, but most cite far lower numbers. Regardless, the number of chimeras is probably growing: In vitro fertilization increases the odds of having fraternal twins by about thirtyfold and is also associated with an increased risk of chimerism.

Well, now that I know chimerism exists I can't help but think of all of the poor babies who are murdered in this heartless manner.  I would like to establish laws requiring extensive testing from the moment of conception so that we can appropriately punish both the mother who allows this to happen and also the sibling who conducts the murder.  (Just trying to tie anything pregnancy-related back to abortion so we can shame and blame some additional women.)


Seriously, though - completely crazy!  I wonder if studying chimerism could help us to better prevent rejection in organ transplants?

[meshaliuknits]

Apr 7, 2013 16:58:07 GMT -5 smock said:

So how long until there's a Law & Order about this?

There wasn't already? CSI did it ages ago, back in the early days.

Sent from my EVO

[ringstrue]

I thought the was a medical mysteries episode? The offspring of her husband and brother bit I think was from her case.

[sushi]

I guess I've read about this often enough that I thought chimera from the headline. Super fascinating. I don't think there's any research on it, but I'd love to know if it has any effect at the cellular level.

[Deleted]

Apr 7, 2013 15:58:47 GMT -5 summer said:

The judge in the case hoped Fairchild’s impending due date might clear things up. He appointed a witness to monitor the birth from the delivery room and to watch blood being drawn from Fairchild and her baby, for more tests.

OMG I can't even imagine.  Poor woman.

[LoveTrains]

Apr 7, 2013 16:49:31 GMT -5 @juno said:

 My eyes are two different colors.  I wonder if I'm a sibling eater?

I wonder if anyone has ever been incorrectly ruled out as a suspect in a criminal case this way?  I guess it's better than an innocent going to prison if we didn't have DNA, but still unsettling that we rely on it so heavily when it's available (at least that's what TV tells me we do).

Yeah I saw a CSI where this happened. 

[pixy0stix]

I know from tv that if you put these people under black light, their skin is oddly rippled.

[twohearted]

Apr 7, 2013 17:24:13 GMT -5 aurora said:

Seriously, though - completely crazy!  I wonder if studying chimerism could help us to better prevent rejection in organ transplants?

The immune system has not developed yet to distinguish between self and non-self when this occurs. Once it is developed it will recognize both sets of cells as "self".

But along the lines of what you were thinking I believe they are currently doing a clinical trial where they are doing bone marrow transplants in fetuses with sickle cell. This essentially cures the disease and the children will not need drugs to suppress their immune system since the immune system once developed will recognize the donor as  "self".

[Velar Fricative]

Apr 7, 2013 16:49:31 GMT -5 @juno said:

 My eyes are two different colors.  I wonder if I'm a sibling eater?

I wonder if anyone has ever been incorrectly ruled out as a suspect in a criminal case this way?  I guess it's better than an innocent going to prison if we didn't have DNA, but still unsettling that we rely on it so heavily when it's available (at least that's what TV tells me we do).

I thought about criminal cases too. Yikes.

And then I admit that I also thought about if any of the "You are NOT the father!" guys on Maury may actually be the father. Whoa.

[ttt]

Apr 7, 2013 17:48:07 GMT -5 sushi said:

I guess I've read about this often enough that I thought chimera from the headline. Super fascinating. I don't think there's any research on it, but I'd love to know if it has any effect at the cellular level.

That's what I thought too. I read about a case that was similar to this not long ago so it was the first thing that I thought of when I read this. So bizarre and fascinating. There is so much about the human body that we still don't even understand yet.

[tripleshot]

Thats crazy. I developed a rare autoimmune disease when I was pg (with a boy). We think it was caused by microchimerism.

[mie]

Fascinating!

[Deleted]

I find it hard to believe any of this was relevant to the matter at hand. I administer public subsidies and it doesn't matter to me what DNA says. Provided Mom was the legal guardian, her DNA shouldn't have been questioned. And if the boyfriend was already paying court-ordered child support, then his familial duty was already established. I'm a little bleary eyed at the invasiveness of the DNA testing for both parties, let alone the shitshow that ensued as a result. Poor Mom.

(I know, so not the point of the story)

[ChillyMcFreeze]

I remember the CSI episode, too. You have to think it's not common enough to have a significant impact on crime-solving, but it does make you wonder.

[Saint Monica]

I actually learned about this in Court.

[PinkSquirrel]

I've heard of this before and it is fascinating. I feel like they had a thing on the Discovery channel about it a few years ago.

[lime]

Fascinating.

Thanks for posting. My mother's PhD is in genetics and I'm going to forward this to her.

[Deleted]

I am horrified for the mother. What the hell was that judge thinking? It's not like this is an unheard of phenomenon.

[iammalcolmx]

Wow is all I can say

[downtoearth]

Hmmm...could a non-absorbed twin cause chimera also? I guess something weird came out with the placenta when I was born to my mom. I always joked it was a twin I "ate" but I wonder now if I have some of it's DNA in me.  I do have an auto-immune psoriasis condition, but it's not bad at all.