Being a twin may add a few extra years to your life, a new study suggests. Researchers found that identical twins in Denmark tended to live longer than fraternal twins in that country, while both types of twins typically outlived men and women in Denmark who were not twins.
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.
It is estimated that 1 in 250 natural pregnancies will naturally result in twins. While twin pregnancies can happen by chance, there are some factors that may increase your odds of having two babies at the same time.
Age. According to the Office on Women's Health , women who are aged 30 years or older are more likely to conceive twins. The reason for this is that women of this age are more likely than younger women to release more than one egg during their reproductive cycle.
Monoamniotic-monochorionic Twins
This is the rarest type of twin, and it means a riskier pregnancy as the babies can get tangled in their own umbilical cords.
The reality is that raising multiples is hard. You have double or triple the feeding, diapering, and laundry and, as a result, less time to spend cuddling and getting to know each baby. To be sure, there will be days when you feel as if you're walking up a down escalator.
“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.
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).
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.
Being a twin has its benefits—tricking people, having a lifelong companion, sharing clothes—but it also has downsides. Many twins struggle to cultivate their own identities, while being so similar to one another. And that struggle lasts a lifetime, according to a recent study.
Twins and other multiple-birth individuals can suffer from much deeper and troubling loneliness than single-born individuals. Separation anxiety, which often begins at birth, is the underlying cause of loneliness for twins.
Identical twins have DNA that is 99.9% the same. They also have almost nearly identical brain wave patterns. But they do have different fingerprints and teeth marks! 22% of twins are left-handed as opposed to the 10% of singletons who turn out to be left-handed.
37 men who had fathered non-identical twins with a control group of 349 men with normal, healthy sperm. On average, they found that fathers of twins had more normal and motile, or mobile, sperm than the control group. Their sperm counts were also higher, although not significantly.
Moms of multiples will tell you that the first three to four months is a stage of pure survival mode and sleep deprivation. The babies are colicky, gassy, and don't even offer a smile in return. Tandem breastfeeding is awkward, and you still have to cradle their heads.
This is called co-bedding and is perfectly safe. In fact, putting twins in the same cot can help them regulate their body temperatures and sleep cycles, and can soothe them and their twin.
Twins will have better communication skills and less sibling rivalry than other children, a study shows. 'Multiple' siblings will have closer bonds than siblings of different ages and are likely to be best friends until adulthood, experts say.
You shouldn't share the same bed with your twins because it increases the risk of SIDS. But the AAP does recommend that you room-share — having your twins sleep in your room, each in their own bassinet or crib — ideally for the first six months.
Most twins, triplets and more grow and develop along roughly the same lines as their singleton peers – even those who start out much smaller will catch up in time. But there is nothing to say twins, triplets or more have to reach milestones at the same time as each other.
Try some baby-soothing tactics
Try singing or reading to them, giving them a little massage, doing a funny dance to entertain them or even taking them outside for some fresh air. Just remember that what works for one baby may not work for the other, so you may have to try something totally different for each infant.
Longer lives
When analyzing the data by gender, the researchers found that female identical twins lived, on average, about 63.4 years, whereas female fraternal twins lived about 61.4 years and the general Danish female population lived about 58.8 years, Sharrow said.
And because the death rate in the womb is higher for twins than for singleton births, female twins are more common than male twins.
However, for a given pregnancy, only the mother's genetics matter. Fraternal twins happen when two eggs are simultaneously fertilized instead of just one. A father's genes can't make a woman release two eggs.