How To Conceive Twins
Ok, so I don’t have to tell you how you have twins; we all know about the birds and the bees ‘ right? The question on most peoples lips as soon as they see you have twins is “do they run in the family?”
I have fraternal twins and monochorionic twins, both sets naturally conceived and a wonderful surprise. There are twins in other generations but there’s no pattern of skipping a generation. I am tall and I do eat dairy products.
Now the facts:
Most twins are Fraternal. Identical twins are rare. What’s the difference I hear you say? Well, Fraternal Twins are two separate eggs fertilised by 2 separate sperm whilst Identical twins come from one single egg fertilised by one single sperm that then divides in to 2 separate embryos.
The likelihood of having monochorionic twins is about one set per 250 births. This is a consistent statistic across the world. Monochorionic twins are not dependent upon heredity, race, age or number of pregnancies so you’ll have more probability of conceiving Fraternal Twins. Not only are fraternal twins likely to be swayed by race, heredity, maternal age and number of prior pregnancies they’re also more common due to fertility drugs. If a lady has fertility drugs to assist with conception the odds of twins is increased; fertility drugs stimulate the ovaries increasing the percentages that a lady will release several eggs at the same time.
To summarize, there are reasons that explain why your chances can be increased with conceiving fraternal twins but not with Identical Twins. Monochorionic Twins are described as “spontaneous” and sort of a mystery.
If you’re a twin or twins run in your circle of relatives you are slightly more certain to conceive twins yourself. Hyper Ovulation is the tendency to release multiple eggs during ovulation, augmenting the chances of conceiving fraternal twins. So in families where the ladies have the gene for hyper ovulation, genetics would explain an increased presence of fraternal twins. This doesn’t explain why some mother’s have identical twins as we know that identical twins, a. K. A, Monochorionic twins come from the splitting of one single egg.
As it is only ladies who ovulate, the hereditary connection is only valid on the mother’s side of the family. Put simply, whilst men can carry and pass the gene on to their daughters, a family history of twins doesn’t make them any more likely to have twins themselves.
Another chance is the older you’re the higher chance you have of conceiving fraternal twins; a study found that ladies over 35 produce more follicle stimulating hormones than younger females.
There are some more random concepts about the frequency of twin pregancy like Twins are more common in large and tall women and the more pregnancies a woman has had the larger the probabilities of having twins. If you have conceived had a set of fraternal twins you are 2 times as certain to have another set in future pregnancies. If the firstborn are twins you are about five times more likely to copy twinning.
Diet may be a possible factor; there is a clan in West Africa known as The Yoruba Tribe and they have the top rate of twinning in the world. A study concluded the mother’s diet was the cause, being high in cassava, a variety of yam or sweet potato. Allegedly, these plant peelings are generally believed to contain a chemical that causes hyperovulation. In addition 1 2006 study found that women who consume dairy are five times as likely to have twins.
With the experience of the above you might say I fall into both classes; hyper ovulation gene and puzzle and so I can just think that the Universe understands that I like a challenge and having 2 sets of twins is definitely that!
Happy Twinning!
Mother of Twins Twice shares her own experiences of having twins on her website Twinstips.com
Tags: chances of twin conception, how to have twins, pregnant with twins, signs of a twin pregnancy
