Comments on: Twins…Are They Exactly the Same?

By: Lionel

Lionel — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:46:52 +0000

Hi Rachael, Great Post
As Guy said, I’ve also learned a lot about twins by reading this post, thank you. I think its interesting that women from 30-50 years old are more likely to have twins.
I also think its interesting that out of all multiple births twins are 95% of all multiple births, even though they only come about every 90 or so births. Triplets are born every 1 out of 10,000 births, and are becoming more popular as Briana C. said, with fertility treatment. Fraternal twins are more common than identical twins, because it is more rare for a single fertilized egg to divide into to fetuses.
This is a great site for information.

http://pregnancyandbaby.sheknows.com/pregnancy/baby/Baby-boom–Expecting-twins-triplets-or-more-5580.htm

By: shanika

shanika — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:57:04 +0000

this is an interesting website i have just recently learned about twins which i am researching at the moment i wanted to ask are there any differences in twins due to only the environment?

By: guy

guy — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:28:31 +0000

Let me start off by saying that i learned a lot about twins and how they come to be. I found a few more reasons of how someone is more likley to have twins. If a woman is in their 30’s or 40’s gives them more of a chance because they have higher levels of estrogen. If a woman is a twin her slef that also gives them a higher chance of haveing twins because they have that trait. The only thing i want to critisize you on is that you say identical twins are exatly the same. Since they are identical that does not mean they are the same person. Alot of the time twins do have the same friends. I also see a lot of twins that like diffrent things and have different friends. All in all good post.
http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Twins_identical_and_fraternal

By: Lucy and Hannah

Lucy and Hannah — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:07:43 +0000

Hi, my name is Lucy and I have an identical twin. We are a rare kind of twin. We are monoamniotic twins, which share the same amniotic sac. We also shared the same umbilical cord, which spilt to feed both of us. We are also mirror image. Our teeth came in on opposite sides at around the same time. Our parts on on opposite sides. Although we are both right handed. My mom says that her doctor told her that there was a 50% chance that one or both of us would die before we were born. That is partly because we could have cut off one of the others blood supply if our cords got too tangled. There was no dividing membrane between us and we kicked each other in the face a lot. But both of us survived. My mom’s cousin also had monoamniotic twins. One of them has severe heart problems because their internal organs also were mirror image and her wiring is all wrong. Plus her heart didn’t form properly. She’s survived many surgeries and made it past her first year. We hope she will live a fairly normal life.

This kind of twin is not supposed to run in families because it’s so rare. But there is an instance of this kind of twin in every generation in our family as far back as my great grandfather. Past that point there are twins, but we don’t know if they were monoamniotic or not. They seem to be identical in any case. We have a picture of my great great great grandfather and his twin brother. They look like Abraham Lincoln. So in my mom’s generation there are two cases of monoamniotic twins, in my grandfather’s generation there is one set of them and in my great-grand father’s generation there is a set of them, but one didn’t survive. They didn’t even know she was carrying twins until after the baby was born. But they know she carried a monoamniotic set of twins because they could see how the remains were attached to the umbilical cord.

We also have chickens that just laid an egg with two yolks. I guess if that hatched, it would have been monoamniotic chicks!

We are 11 years old and my mom homeschools us.

By: briana c.

briana c. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:44:02 +0000

Hey Rachael,

Great article!! I especially liked the videos explaining how twins are born. Another question you might want to think about is: If having twins is a hereditable trait! I did some of the research for you though and here is what I found… Being a twin does give you an increased chance of having twins, and some families have had many generations of twins. But, being a twin does not mean that you can’t give birth to a single child. Also, some doctors and scientists believe that the ability to have twins is only passed on by the mother, because the mother is the one who ovulates.

But having a family history of giving birth to twins is not the only way that people can have twins, and it is not the only reason WHY people have twins. Some other reasons are birth control pills, fertility pills, dairy products, and if you have children at a later age you have a higher possibility to have twins.

Due to recent TV shows and magazines having twins has become a new fad, and more twins are being born throughout the country… even though the statistics are low, it seems like twins are everywhere. More and more women a year are receiving in vitro fertilization and taking fertilization drugs. But some scientists wonder if taking these drugs and having these procedures will basically CREATE a new hereditable trait in the family to have genes. So in generations to come scientists will be watching these “created” twins to see if they will produce twins or other multiples of children.

Here is a site that can further explain these scientists and doctors theories…. http://multiples.about.com/b/2009/07/10/forum-friday-are-twins-hereditary.htm

By: Casey B.

Casey B. — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:43:24 +0000

Rachel, this was an excellent post that captured my attention because my basketball coach has recently become pregnant with identical twin girls. The births of multiples have become increasingly more common in the United States. In the year 2000, there were 118,916 Twin Births, 6,742 Triplet Births, 506 Quadruplet Births, and 77 Quintuplets & Other Higher Order Births. About 3% of all births in the United States were of multiples. Naturally the chance of giving birth to twins is only about 1.7%. In my opinon, this increase of multiples is due to many advances in bio technology. More and more women are using fertility treatments. Fertility treatments can include fertility drugs and in vitro fertilization. This increases the chance of having twins to about 20-25%! The chance of having identical twins is significantly lower. About 1 in 250 women give birth to identical twins.
Although it seems that the chances of giving birth to twins are very high, these statistics show that it is actually quite low. I think that the media has influenced our view of the frequency of twins. Due to the high demand of interest on this topic, there have been many documentaries and television shows that involve the births of multiples. The famous television show Jon and Kate plus 8 features two sets of multiples, fraternal twins and sextuplets. This case was extremely rare and was aided by the use of fertility drugs. Twins have become more popular due to many influences of the media.

All of the statistics mentioned were found on: http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/twins/twin_statistics.html