The muscles of your babies' eyes, nose, and mouth have begun to form. Their ears have begun as folds on the side of the head and their inner ears are beginning to form as well. Your babies' hands and feet began as small buds and they now have webbed fingers and toes sticking out from their developing hands and feet.
Yes. A twin pregnancy can often be detected in your first trimester by an ultrasound Opens a new window at 6 weeks or later. If your healthcare provider checks your hcG levels, a higher-than-normal level can be a sign of a twin pregnancy. But you'll need an ultrasound to confirm that it's really twins.
By 8 weeks of your twin pregnancy, your babies will have buds for limbs that look like little paddles. Two heartbeats. The tissues that form your babies' hearts will begin to develop at this time. Heartbeats may even be detected during an ultrasound exam offered by your healthcare provider during this trimester.
Your Twin Babies at 8 Weeks Pregnant
Right now, your babies are around two thirds of an inch long, or around the size of a kidney bean or raspberry. They're going to grow a noticeable amount each day, too. Around a millimetre a time.
While many moms-to-be first start to show at about 22 to 28 weeks, those with multiples will probably announce their pregnancy to the world by as early as 20 weeks.
Home pregnancy test positive earlier than “normal”
If you get a positive test, especially a really dark positive, days before your period is even due, that may be one of the early signs of twins! The more babies you're carrying, the higher and faster your human chorionic gonadotropin hormone (hCG) rises.
In general, women carrying twins are more likely to “show” sooner than those with a single pregnancy. However, many women show much earlier in subsequent pregnancies than their first, so this isn't an entirely reliable way to predict a twin pregnancy.
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.
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).
At eight weeks, your twins' hearts have divided into right and left chambers, and will soon have all four chambers. They're already beating at about 150 beats per minute. This is twice as fast as your own heartbeat.
Twin pregnancy timetable milestones
The second milestone is 28 weeks, when viability skyrockets. Ninety percent of babies who make it to this stage of gestation survive. Long-term complications — including cerebral palsy, vision and breathing problems — are still a possibility, however.
Some pregnant moms of multiples report intensified symptoms of nausea, fatigue, breast tenderness, food cravings, or the like. It's more common in women who have experienced a previous pregnancy and thus have a basis for comparison.
At the same time, some moms of twins and triplets say they have no morning sickness. The uterus is larger than expected because a twin or multiples pregnancy may cause the mother's uterus to expand beyond the range of a single pregnancy. Higher hCG levels.
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.
Splitting of the embryo may occur at any time during the first 2 weeks after fertilization, resulting in several forms of monozygotic twins.
Your nausea and vomiting may be worse than ever: Morning sickness peaks around 9 or 10 weeks of pregnancy for many women. That's when levels of the pregnancy hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) are highest (morning sickness is thought to be linked to rises in hCG and estrogen).
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.
Early signs of a twin pregnancy include severe morning sickness, quick weight gain, and more breast tenderness. You may also notice an increased appetite or extreme fatigue. Plus, those who have a twin pregnancy may begin showing sooner.
Morning sickness tends to be more severe for moms having twins than moms having singletons. Hearing heartbeats early on: Your doctor would be able to hear 2 sets of heartbeats as early as 10-12 weeks into pregnancy. Higher water retention: There is a high level of water retention when you are having twins.
An immediate dark positive result could mean that there's a high concentration of hCG in your urine, and the test is showing an immediate dark result due to the hormone level. One thing to note is that all home pregnancy tests are different and may detect hCG at different levels.
If you test yourself even earlier than that, it's just as likely that what you measured is simply a normal variation in hormone production. Early positives may mean you have two more babies on the way (which research indicates is more common among women over the age of 35), or they may mean that you have just one.
Range of hCG levels and what they can mean
The range for singletons is 5 – 397 and for twins it is 48 – 683. As you can see, there is a big overlap between the first hCG level in singleton and twins.
In the mother's womb (uterus), most identical twins share the same placenta. (They get oxygen and nutrients from the mother and get rid of wastes through the placenta.) But they usually grow within separate amniotic sacs. In rare cases, identical twins share one amniotic sac.