Multiples are about twice as likely as singleton babies to have birth defects, including neural tube defects (such as spina bifida), cerebral palsy, congenital heart defects and birth defects that affect the digestive system. Growth problems. Multiples are usually smaller than singleton babies.
Anemia is more than twice as common in multiple pregnancies as in a single birth. Multiple birth babies have about twice the risk of congenital (present at birth) abnormalities including neural tube defects (such as spina bifida), gastrointestinal, and heart abnormalities.
With a twin pregnancy, your body makes high levels of pregnancy hormones. So morning sickness may come on earlier and stronger than if you were carrying a single baby. You may also have earlier and more intense symptoms from pregnancy, like swelling, heartburn, leg cramps, bladder discomfort, and sleep problems.
"One of the things that is postulated as causing morning sickness is high levels of human chorionic gonadotropin, and we know that levels of this hormone are higher in twin pregnancies, so women carrying twins have a higher incidence of nausea and vomiting in the first trimester," says Al-Khan.
Potential health complications in a twin pregnancy
Women with twin pregnancies are more likely to have pregnancy health problems and complications like gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, premature labour and bleeding. Twins who share a placenta might have extra complications.
The hardest thing about having twins is...
“Managing the movement of two babies. Carrying them both up and down the stairs, getting them into the car, etc.” —Simeon R. “Often having to make one baby wait!” —Catharine D. “Being outnumbered—the logistics of two on one is definitely the hardest.
Twin pregnancy has increased risks of preterm labor, spontaneous preterm birth, premature rupture of membranes, neonatal and perinatal morbidity and mortality [5, 10, 21, 22].
Overall, 70% to 80% of women can experience some amount of nausea and vomiting with pregnancies, and up to 2% reportedly experience hyperemesis gravidarum, a form of severe morning sickness. At the same time, some moms of twins and triplets say they have no morning sickness.
People over 30, and particularly those over age 35, are more likely to conceive twins. 4 This is because the level of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) rises as birthing parents get older. FSH is responsible for the development of eggs in the ovaries before they are released.
40% of twins invent their own languages. Identical twins have different fingerprints. Twins can have completely different skin tone. Twins start interacting in the womb at 14 weeks.
A little more than half of twin pregnancies end in preterm delivery (before 37 weeks). While 40 weeks is the full gestation period of the average pregnancy, most twin pregnancies are delivered at approximately 36 weeks (range 32-38 weeks depending on the type of twin pregnancy).
Twins are at increased risk of fetal and infant death compared with singleton births. 1-3 The increased risk is partly the result of the lower birthweight and gestational age at delivery of multiple pregnancies. At particular risk are monozygotic twins who have poorer survival rates than dizygotic twins.
Identical twins share the same placenta, which may make the risk of cerebral palsy greater when there are complications, such as one twin dying in the womb.
The incidence of handicap was 3.7% in twins, 8.7% in triplets, 11.1% in quadruplets, and 10.0% in quintuplets. The risk of producing at least 1 handicapped child was approximately 1 in 13 pairs of twins (7.4%), 1 in 4 or 5 sets of triplets (21.6%), and 1 in 2 sets of quadruplet and quintuplets (50%).
Smith adds: "The prevailing view is that the burden of childbearing on women is heavier when bearing twins. But we found the opposite: women who naturally bear twins in fact live longer and are actually more fertile."
What Did the Researchers Find? They found that the monozygotic twins who differed later in life in their social class tended to have differences in health, with the working-class twin having higher blood pressure and higher cholesterol than her professional counterpart.
Today, the researchers report online in Cell that identical twins' immune systems were too different for the variation to boil down to genetics. Indeed, environment overshadowed inheritance in three-quarters of the measurements, and half showed no measurable genetic influence.
“Having twins is not twice as hard—it's exponentially more difficult,” says Natalie Diaz, author of What To Do When You're Having Two and CEO of Twiniversity, a global support network for parents of twins.
Parents Of Twins Run Higher Risk Of Depression Than Other New Parents : Shots - Health News Expectant parents of twins and other multiples may be ready for the joy and extra physical demands of caring for more than one baby. But few know the risk of depression and anxiety runs higher, too.
The findings show that twins have a survival advantage over the general population at nearly every age, and between the two types of twins, identical twins have a survival advantage over fraternal twins, said David Sharrow, the lead author of the study and a demographer and postdoctoral researcher at the University of ...
1. At three months: The three-month stage marks the end of the “fourth trimester” and your twins can better adapt to life outside the womb. For one thing, they'll sleep in longer stretches of about three- to four-hour chunks.
It's the feeling of never being completely alone; there's always someone on your side. Being a twin doesn't feel like there is another “you.” Instead it feels like together we make one; that we complement and complete each other. We are the Yin to each other's Yang! It's having a teammate for life.
The results suggest that twin fetuses are aware of their counterparts in the womb, that they prefer to interact with them, and that they respond to them in special ways. Contact between them appeared to be planned—not an accidental outcome of spatial proximity, says study co-author Cristina Becchio of Turin.