The Twinship Sourcebook: Your Guide to Understanding Multiples [Paperback]

Editors of Twins Magazine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1993 | ISBN-10: 0963674544 | ISBN-13: 978-0963674548

Are you a parent, teacher, medical professional, or Researcher who cares for and about multiples--twins, triplets, quadruplets or more? Here's just the resource you've been looking for to understand and Support the challenges multiple-birth children experience in balancing their twinship with individuality--from infancy through adulthood.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

All of us at TWINS Magazine respect and treasure our readership families who share their families' hopes and dreams with us each day in the most compelling ways. Due to heartfelt requests for information from these individuals-teachers, parents, medical professionals and multiples themselves-we have dedicated many months to putting together this one-of-a-kind resource, compiled from the past eight years of special TWINS Magazine editorials.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From Chapter 1 Factors Influencing Multiplicity Several factors have contributed to the significant rise in multiple births over the last 15 years. As women delay childbearing and the age of the mother increases, the possibility of multiple fetuses increases. Extraordinary advancements in fertility treatment and assisted reproductive procedures help couples previously unable to conceive. Improved medical technology makes it feasible to detect multiple fetuses early on, monitor their development and even carry out fetal surgery to correct anomalies in utero. Physicians are better able to prolong high-risk pregnancies, helping babies born in sets to survive in greater numbers. High-tech neonatal intensive care units and specially trained caregivers make survival not only possible but increasingly probable for even the smallest at-risk infants. Doctors are advising women who are pregnant with multiples to improve their nutrition and to even purposefully gain extra weight. Bed rest is often prescribed, and a higher number of Cesarean sections are being performed to ensure successful deliveries. When a woman who has given birth to multiples gets pregnant again, her chances of giving birth to another set increase greatly. Based on this biological fact, the rising birth rate of multiples has the potential to continue to climb, resulting in even more multiples being born.

Twinning Throughout history, twins-and higher order multiples-have been the subject of myth, mystery and superstition. Fortunately, most societies have dispelled age-old fables surrounding twins. In most cultures around the world, the birth of twins is now valued and accepted with joy as well as great curiosity. Different parts of the world have varying incidences of multiple births. Asian populations have the lowest rates of twin births and West Africans the highest. There are about 125 million twins worldwide. In the United States, during 1992-1994, twins were born at a rate of 24 babies per 1000 births. Another way of viewing this is that one in every 50 births is a twin baby. Twinning rates were the highest in Connecticut and Massachusetts and lowest in the mountain states of the West. Biologically, multiples may have identical genes (identical twins) or familial genes (fraternal twins). About two-thirds of all twins are fraternal and one-third are identical.

Twins: Identical vs. Fraternal Identical twins come from the same egg that has split, and are always the same sex. They always look very much alike. Often they act alike and develop very similar behaviors and personalities as they grow up. Fraternal twins come from two separate eggs that are fertilized at or about the same time. They may or may not be the same sex, and they are no more identical in appearance, temperament or behavior than any other siblings. It's not uncommon, however, for same-sex fraternal twins to look very similar-though frequently they have little resemblance.

Triplets and Higher Order Multiples Triplet deliveries tripled between 1980 and 1994. Remarkably, the triplet birth rate (number of babies born per 1,000 births) increased more than 200 percent during this period. Some 4,233 triplets, 315 quadruplets, and 46 quintuplets were born in 1994, which means that one of every 860 babies born was a higher order multiple. This compares with only about one in every 3,500 births in the early 1970s. Triplets and other higher order multiples are usually a combination of identical and fraternal types. There is often a set of identical twins, with the other child or children in the set being fraternals. It is extremely rare for all the children in a higher order set to be identical. Amazingly, however, in March 1997, healthy identical female quadruplets were delivered at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, New York. Statistically, the chance of quads being identical is only about one in 11 million. The rarest of multiple births are sextuplets. An April 1997 newspaper story announced, "Mail carrier addresses her biggest delivery: six kids." The two boys and four girls weighed in at between two and three pounds each when they were born at State University Hospital in Stony Brook, New York. There are 34 sets of surviving quintuplets in the U.S., and 3 sets of surviving sextuplets. Women have been pregnant with septuplets, but medical records indicate all seven babies have never survived the birth.

Product Details

• Paperback: 269 pages
• Publisher: Twins Magazine (June 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963674544
• ISBN-13: 978-0963674548
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,250,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)