TWINS Rachel Lowe and Tracy O'Callaghan could hardly believe it when they ended up in hospital together - each having just given birth.

It was even more remarkable that Rachel had given birth to twins - Aidan and Callum.

Rachel explained how an amazing series of events ended with them both 'holding the baby' in opposite beds at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital.

"My sister Tracy was due to give birth on 8 July but she was 11 days early.

"She went in to hospital on 27 June out of the blue," she said.

Unbelievably Rachel also went into hospital on 27 June so that her expected baby could have a steroid injection in order to strengthen his lungs in preparation for a Caesarian the following day.

But Rachel was up all night unable to sleep.

She thought it was because she was nervous about the Caesarian - but now she believes she might have been feeling the vibes as her twin sister went into labour. Tracy had her baby, Amy, on the Sunday.

Rachel's twin boys arrived on the Monday. "Afterwards we found ourselves on the same ward in opposite beds," said Rachel.

"It certainly caused some confusion among the nurses, who said they had never seen anything like it." Rachel, from Andover, and Tracy, from Broughton, are non-identical twins.

But twins are not a rarity in their family. Their mother's sister and brother are twins and that same sister also had twins. There are also twins on their father's side of the family.

Rachel says twins are more often born on the second pregnancy - as happened in her case.

She already has a 16-year-old girl.

Her sister, of course, has just had a baby girl. Watch this space.