Was wondering if zygosity testing in twins is routine at hospitals after the birth or is it something you have to pursue yourself? How, when and where did you find out whether your same sex twins are frat or id?
My babies are the result of IVF and are di/di but I am led to believe there is still a chance that they may be id, more likely frat as we transferred two embryos but still a slight chance of id. I would like to know either way so how did you find out about yours?

Cheers

PS I am rhesus negative also so their blood group will be tested (this was the case with my DS), if they are different blood types are they definately frat?

AFAIK, zygosity testing is not routine. My girls were born 2.5 years ago and it was never offered for them. But, they did have their blood type tested and are different so that removed any doubt - not that there was much t o start with, they looked completely different.

I pressumed it was routine for all babies to have their blood type determined before they left hospital. Is that not the case? All my kids had blood typing done but I am also RH- so maybe that was why.

congrats on your pregnancy - a piece of my placenta was taken from each end where their cords were attached and tested - that was how they determined my girls were id - my hospital does this as a matter of course for all same sex twins without parents asking.

otherwise there are things like the Australian Twin Registry dental study or private clinics (the last one can get a bit exxy depending on who you go with).

Wow manfurme, I've never heard anywhere that does that as routine. Lucky you!

Generally zygosity testing is not routine so you need to arrange it yourself, unless, as you said, they have different blood types. We had ours done as part of a study, but there are links on the AMBA and ATR websites for private companies.

I was told (by people in the medical profession no less!) that my di/di twin girls were 'definitely fraternal' simply because they were di/di . They were blood tested at birth but only because they were prem and in NICU/SCN, and had the same blood type, so that didn't help with confirmation.

I enrolled in the Australian Twin Registry while they were still in hospital, so I could then join the Dental Study and receive complimentary zygosity testing. And yes they were identical, despite being di/di.

The cheapest zygosity testing I've seen, if you wanted to do it privately, is $145 by memory. If I hadn't been involved in the study which gave me free testing, I would definitely have paid the money to satisfy my own curiosity!

Of course even if you have same gender twins, with the same blood grouping, they may look NOTHING alike, in which case you can save your $$ lol. Although looking at recent threads some mums of identicals think they DO look nothing alike!

Thanks very much for the replies....

tle - I'm pretty sure blood typing is not routine after birth, only done to determine whether an anti-d shot is needed, I could be wrong though? Yeah, I suppose once we see the babies that might also satisfy our curiousity!

manfurme - thanks for the congrats, it's been a long hard road...

I'll check out those websites you guys suggested so thanks very much for that. I would like to participate in research so that may be an option I'll look into, otherwise I'm happy to fork out the dollars to find out.....

Thanks again

We had the same here too. They said ID but I really question that

Goodluck

Belinda