Cassandra Bankson is known best as a YouTube star who regularly offers up beauty tips to her legion of fans. Now, she’s sharing something way more personal. After experiencing ongoing kidney pain, Cassandra went to the doctor last year and discovered that she has two vaginas. Not only that, she also has two wombs and two cervixes.
"When we got the test results back, the doctor said I only had one kidney and flippantly added that I have two vaginas, as she suspected," the 22-year-old model said in a new segment she filmed for Bancroft TV.
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Her condition is known as uterus didelphys, and can occur when the uterine system is developing in utero. Here’s how it works: The female reproductive system is fairly symmetrical with two ovaries and two fallopian tubes. The uterus is actually a fusion from either side of the system to create one uterus. Sometimes during development, things can go wrong and two uteruses, two vaginas, and two cervixes can be created.
This condition can manifest itself in a whole variety of ways, says Melissa Goist, M.D., a physician who specializes in obstetrics and gynecology and serves as an assistant clinical professor at The Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. For example, a woman can have two vaginas, but just one uterus and one cervix. It’s also possible to have what’s called a “unicorn uterus,” where a woman is missing one side of her reproductive system. Goist says she has had six total patients who have had “some sort of duplicate system.”
But how is it possible to not know that you have two vaginas? Wouldn’t that be obvious? Nope, says Jason James, M.D., the chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the Baptist Hospital of Miami.
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“It’s not the type of thing that women find out on their own,” he says. “It’s also fairly easy for a gynecologist to miss it.” When you have a double vagina, there’s essentially a septum (like the one in your nose) that separates the vagina in half, he explains. That septum usually divides down the middle but often one of the vaginas develops to become the “dominant passageway” due to tampon use and sex, and the other gets essentially pushed to the side.
“When the gynecologist examines the patient, the speculum more easily goes into the dominant vagina,” he says. If a doctor isn’t paying close attention, James says, he or she could miss a double vagina altogether.
Women who have a duplicate system will typically experience a normal period because their ovaries are on the same cycle, says Goist. However, they may notice that tampons don’t seem to work well since they’re probably only using them in one vagina.
In most cases, it’s actually possible to correct a double vagina, says Susan Lin, M.D., an ob-gyn in San Mateo, California. If a woman’s vagina is simply split in half, for example, the divider can be removed, creating one vagina.
Overall, uterus didelphys is pretty asymptomatic, says James. Some woman may have pain during sex, he says, but typically that’s not a problem.
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However, there is a possibility of having difficulty carrying a baby to full term since women with the condition have uteruses that are smaller than a normal uterus. But James says it’s possible to have a healthy pregnancy. (He’s delivered three babies for one of his patients with a double uterus.)
So, while the concept of a double vagina is fascinating, it’s completely possible for a woman with the condition to live a normal life.
Jokes Cassandra: "I guess I'm twice the woman I thought I was."
