To minimize confusion, take a close look at both babies, because even identicals can have unique features, such as birthmarks or moles. Some parents will paint a toenail for each twin, either using different colors or painting just one. You can also try putting an anklet or different bracelets on one or both babies.
"Identical twins look much alike, especially at birth," she tells TODAY.com. "Excluding a difference in weight, birthmarks or other obvious identifiers, it can be difficult to tell them apart," especially when parents are anxious, stressed or sleep deprived.
The more you're around identical twins, the easier it becomes to differentiate them. “Some people have a harder time,” Perrault says. One elementary-school teacher couldn't separate Ember and Scarlett even after a full school year (parents often choose to have identical twins in different classes for this reason).
For vaginal delivery of both infants, the twins decide birth order by their placement in the uterus. Once the babies are large enough to stay in one position in the womb, the twin lowest in the uterus is known as Baby A and the one furthest from there is Baby B, according to the Stanford Medicine News Center.
As a parent of twins, I'm pretty sure that you know the answer to the question “which twin is older?” It is, of course, the child that was born first.
As expected, first-born twins had greater birth weight than second-born twins. With respect to height, first-born twins were slightly taller than second-born twins in childhood.
After only a few hours or days at most, they are distinguishable as individuals. Even if they look alike, parents just know the difference. Perhaps that is why this fear resonates with some parents. Recognizing and knowing your child is a deep-rooted, primal instinct.
Fraternal or 'dizygotic' twins
Around two in three sets of twins are fraternal. Two separate eggs (ova) are fertilised by two separate sperm, resulting in fraternal or 'dizygotic' (two-cell) twins. These babies will be no more alike than siblings born at separate times.
It is likely that twins' awareness of one another starts sooner than seven or eight months of age. An article by the late doctor, T. Berry Brazelton, observed that at age three to four months, an infant identical female twin seemed disoriented when her sister was removed from the room.
Some twins are just stuck in the mire of their closeness, their anger and their longing for harmony. Even when twins remain conflicted and are unable to resolve their anger and disappointment with one another, they still miss each other.
With twins, division among siblings is inevitable. And if overlooked, this can come at the cost of your singleton feeling left out, especially if he has no other sibling to relate to. But with a mindful approach, you can be more aware of their sibling dynamics.
The longest interval between the birth of twins is 90 days, in the case of Molly and Benjamin West, dizygotic (fraternal) twins born in Baltimore, Maryland, USA to parents Lesa and David West (all USA) on 1 January and 30 March 1996.
Use Physical Variations
Look hard enough and you'll find subtle physical variations in twins. Birthmarks, freckles, or moles appear in different spots. Mirror image twins may have hair whorls or cowlicks that spiral in different directions.
You may find out whether your twins are identical or non-identical at your first ultrasound scan (dating scan). It depends on how much detail your sonographer can see and whether or not your twins share a placenta. If they each have a placenta, or your sonographer can't tell, it means they may be non-identical.
However, since only women ovulate, the connection is only valid on the mother's side of the family. While men can carry the gene and pass it on to their daughters, a family history of twins doesn't make them any more likely to have twins themselves.
The quick answer to this question is that, in a twin pregnancy, it is the mother's genes that determine twins. First up, giving birth to identical twins is not genetic, but conceiving fraternal twins is. The mother may have the genetic trait of releasing two eggs in one menstrual cycle.
Did you know that some twins speak their own language, start playing together in the womb, and can be born years apart? In the words of Charlie Sheen (well, sort of)… Twinning!
The study appears in Behavior Genetics. ASD is a developmental disorder that affects how a person behaves, interacts with others and learns. Previous studies have found that when one identical twin has ASD, chances are extremely likely that the other twin has it, too.
Some twins can excel on all levels — academically, socially, mentally and emotionally — only when they get some space from each other, the space to really grow and shine. According to many parents (and teachers), some twins who are in the same class distract each other too much to learn.
Identical twins are almost always the same sex, although there are some rare exceptions to this rule. Because identical twins occur when a single fertilized egg splits and forms two embryos, each embryo has the same chromosomes (usually, XX for girls or XY for boys). Remember that sex and gender are not the same.
Such twins, known scientifically as 'MoMo', an abbreviation for monoamniotic-monochorionic, are some of the rarest types of twins, making up less than one percent of all births in the United States, noted the statement.
Most often, fetuses known in utero as twin A are also first born and thus retain their label. However, this is not always the case, such that the twin A newborn was previously labeled twin B in utero and vice versa.