Although twin pregnancies are higher risk than singletons, there are undeniable perks to having twins. Some moms see twins as an opportunity to get two babies from just one pregnancy, while others may require twins for the special lifelong yoke they may form from sharing the womb.
Regardless of your reasons for having twins, there is much to know well-nigh stargazing them. Of course, whether you get pregnant with twins is up to fate, but some factors might increase your odds. So how are twins conceived, how worldwide are they, and how can you increase your chances of getting pregnant with twins both naturally and with medical treatments? Here’s what you need to know.
Types of Twins and How It Works
Essentially there are two types of twins. You have probably heard the terms “identical” and “fraternal.” Fraternal twins are moreover tabbed “dizygotic” twins, which originate from two separate eggs, sperm, and embryos. This ways a woman must ovulate two eggs, and they must both get fertilized in one cycle. Genetically, the two babies that result from fraternal twins can be as similar or variegated as any other siblings from two separate pregnancies. Fraternal twins share well-nigh half their DNA, like other sets of siblings, and they can be same-sex or opposite-sex.1
Identical or “monozygotic” twins came from one zygote or fertilized egg. This already-fertilized egg, or embryo, divides into two babies in the early stages of lamina semester and development. We know much less well-nigh the mechanics of identical twins, but they have identical DNA and are unchangingly the same sex.1
How Worldwide are Twins?
Twinning rates have fluctuated throughout history and vary by region, country, and racial and ethnic groups.
The rate of identical twins is relatively unvarying at well-nigh four sets of twins per 1,000 pregnancies throughout history and demographics. The changes in twin popularity depend primarily on fluctuations in the prevalence of fraternal twins.1
In the United States, twin births had been on a steady incline from 1980 until their peak in 2014, then began to decline. In 2018, 32.6 of every 1,000 babies born was a twin. This includes both identical and fraternal twins.2
How to Woolgather Twins Naturally
The current understanding of identical twins is that they occur randomly. There have been no identified maternal, genetic, or environmental contributing factors in stargazing identical twins. If you hope to woolgather identical twins, the weightier you can do is navigate your fingers and pray!1
There are, however, several factors that may increase a woman’s chances of stargazing fraternal twins. Some of these you can control, while others are unchangeable.
Increasing Maternal Age
A woman is born with all the eggs she will overly have, but they are immature. At puberty, these eggs uncork to ripen in batches each cycle, though typically only one reaches full maturity, is ovulated, and can be fertilized.
Follicle-stimulating hormone, or FSH, recruits a new group of eggs to mature each cycle. As a woman ages, her reserve of eggs decreases considering she loses batches each month. As the egg reserve decreases, you may need higher levels of FSH to recruit new eggs for development. Higher FSH levels increase the chances that increasingly than one egg will reach full maturity and be ovulated in one cycle. This may be how older moms are increasingly likely than younger moms to have twins.1
Increased Parity
Parity refers to the number of babies born to a mother. Mothers who once have babies are increasingly likely to have twins. While moms with increasingly children are likelier to be older than first-time moms, we can correlate increased parity with twin pregnancies, plane self-sustaining of maternal age. It is not understood why having previous pregnancies and births increases chances for twins, but what this ways is if you alimony having babies, you are increasingly likely to have twins eventually!1
Genetics
The most recent studies suggest a woman can inherit a tendency toward fraternal twins from either of her parents. However, you can only segregate your partner, not your parents, and your male partner’s family history of twins does not impact your likelihood of stargazing twins.1
Sperm Quality
A woman can ovulate two eggs, but both must be fertilized to woolgather fraternal twins. Eggs are increasingly likely to be fertilized if the quality of a man’s sperm is high.
If you are hoping to woolgather twins (or woolgather at all), optimizing the sperm health of your partner is a top priority. Interventions such as maintaining a healthy weight, diet, and exercise routine, managing stress, limiting swig and other drugs, and keeping the testicles tomfool can all modernize male fertility.3
Maternal Size
Taller moms and moms with a soul mass alphabetize of over 30 have a higher likelihood of getting pregnant with twins.1
Conceive During Summer or Fall
Some studies have shown an increased endangerment of stargazing twins during the summer and fall seasons. Food and nutrition availability may contribute to this trend and the effect of daylight hours on hormone concentrations.1
Folic Wounding Consumption
Some studies have shown an undertone between folic acid consumption virtually the time of siring with getting pregnant with twins. Perhaps this is due to a higher likelihood of implantation of both fertilized eggs if a mother’s folic wounding concentrations are adequate.1
Recent Discontinuation of Hormonal Lineage Control
After a woman stops taking lineage tenancy pills or flipside form of hormonal lineage control, her soul takes time to re-regulate her hormones. This may rationalization a temporary increase in FSH and raise her chances of stargazing twins.1
Dairy Consumption
One study shows that women who ate dairy compared with women who did not were five times increasingly likely to woolgather twins. This may be due to a hormone released from an animal’s liver that makes the ovaries increasingly sensitive to FSH.4
Breastfeeding
Women who are breastfeeding when they woolgather a new pregnancy are moreover nine times increasingly likely to wilt pregnant with twins.4
How to Woolgather Twins with Medical Treatment
While all these factors can increase your odds of getting pregnant with twins, there are no guarantees. There are moreover ways to woolgather twins with medications and other medical interventions.
Ovulation Induction
Women who do not ovulate regularly on their own often take fertility drugs to encourage their persons to mature and release an egg for fertilization. Some of these medications, such as clomiphene citrate or follicle-stimulating hormone, can rationalization a woman to ovulate multiple eggs in one cycle, increasing her risk for a multiples pregnancy.
Clomiphene citrate increases a woman’s endangerment of stargazing twins from less than 1 percent to 5-8 percent.5,6
Doctors will combine ovulation induction medications with timed intercourse, telling you when to have sex to optimize your chances of conception. Sometimes ovulation induction medications are combined with intrauterine insemination (IUI) when sperm is injected directly into a woman’s uterus at the time of her ovulation.6
If you take ovulation induction medications, you will likely be closely monitored for the number of mature follicles in your ovaries surpassing ovulation. If you towards to ovulate increasingly than two eggs, your doctor may instruct you to withhold from intercourse, or your insemination might be canceled for that cycle. You do not want to risk stargazing higher-order multiples such as quadruplets considering of the risks it places on a pregnancy.
In Vitro Fertilization
In vitro fertilization (IVF) refers to harvesting a woman’s eggs and fertilizing them with sperm in a laboratory. If fertilization occurs, a doctor can transfer the resulting embryos into the uterus in hopes of implanting and whence a pregnancy. If they transfer multiple embryos and both implant, fraternal twins will occur.7
Even when the doctor transfers only one embryo, IVF pregnancies are increasingly likely to result in twins considering the embryos are increasingly likely to divide and rationalization identical twins. However, there is no well-spoken understanding or scientific consensus as to why.8
You probably will not go through fertility treatments to have twins, but it could be a nice bonus if you have unchangingly wanted to have two babies at once. If you are not eligible for ovulation induction, IUI, or IVF, you may have to rely on the old-fashioned way of getting pregnant, whether with twins or just one baby.
While many factors that influence getting pregnant with twins are out of your control, some interventions are relatively harmless to try. Unchangingly talk to your doctor surpassing waffly your diet, medications, or supplements, but upping your dairy intake and starting a folic wounding supplement could be good places to start. And plane if you do not end up pregnant with twins, these changes could still help you woolgather a singleton baby, which you would likely still be thrilled about.
Resources
1. https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/14/1/37/827500
2. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db351_tables-508.pdf#page=1
3. https://www.mayoclinic.org/20047584
4. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060521103211.htm
5. https://www.thetech.org/
6. https://www.reproductivefacts.org/
7. https://www.reproductivefacts.org/2
8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6289913/
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