Hi Everyone,

I went for a scan today & was told that I am 10wks with mono/di twins. I asked if that meant frat or id twins & was told that you can not tell with these twins as it depends on when the egg split but was probably frat. Now I thought that the egg only splits with id twins, is this correct?? And frat twins are 2 eggs? So if the egg has split then that meants it is definately id twins?? I left the u/s office quite confused & found him very unhelpful.

So my question is how many people have mono/di twins and what were they? Id or Frat?

This world is all so new to me! LOL

Thanks for your help

hi
just wanted to say congrats!!!!!! how exciting!

sorry I can't answer your question because I have frat twins on the way and they were from 2 eggs fertilising!!!

oh and we also have a twins group in the specialised pregnancy forums if you want to pop in too

Corrie:)

Hi!
Congratulations and welcome to the wonderful world of twins!!!!

If he said monozygotic that means one egg
If he said monochorionic that means one placenta

Either way, if he said mono it means identicals - as far as my research is concerned. Monochorionic can also be fraternal twins as 2 placentas can fuse but not as early as 10 weeks.

So by the sounds of it you probably have identicals. I had mono/di twins also and am going to get my zygosity tested just to be sure that they are identical ...but if the ultrasound guy said anything about an egg splitting that means identical as fraternal twins are 2 eggs, 2 sperm.

Hope this helps!! CONGRATULATIONS AGAIN!

Hi Melly,

Congrats on your news. I too have mono/di twins. Ihad an U/S at 9wk 4days and they were able to tell that i had one placenta so i knew that they were identical.

I found that different U/S techs had varying degrees of knowledge. There were times that i was telling them as they had no idea.

What you need to get concrete from your doc is whether there is one placenta or two. Get them to check the slides and If there is one placenta it is def ID if there is two it is fraternal.

Either way congrats again and let us know how you fare.

Hi,

I have tri/tri ID triplets and have done alot of research on how ID's are formed as it fascinates me!!

Mono/di refers to the inner (anmion) and outer (chorion) sacs that your babies have.

Monochorionic means that there is one outer sac around both babies. This only occurs in ID multiples. You will have 1 placenta, so your docs should watch out for TTTS.

Diamniotic means that each baby has their own inside sac. 64% of Monozygotic (single egg) twins have this configuration.


This is untrue as dizygotic twins share nothing. Even if 2 placentas fuse (as I had) they cant become monochorionic.

If you want more info, The Australian Twins Registry www.twins.org.au have a brilliant section that explains it all in detail.

just to clear up - monochorionic of course means identicals as i agree that fraternal twins share nothing HOWEVER my boys were mono/di as that is what they appeared to be...i found out 19 weeks into my pregnancy that i was having twins and by that stage 2 placentas can fuse and appear to be mono not di....
hope that clears up what i meant!

Thanks so much for your replies ladies!!!

I also thought that it meant that I was having ID twins, but the ultrasound tech just really confused me today. He said that there was definately only 1 placenta. So I guess that its id for me YAY I'm quite excited but mighty scared. LOL

Thanks again for the helpful info & I will be checking out that website...

I think that is how my twins where, 2 seperate spaces in the one sac and sharing a placenta. so like they had their own little sac in the one big one. I hope thats right cause it was so long ago now . they said they coulnt be nothing but ID to me.

My boys are mono/di. We had one placenta. They shared a outer sac but had a dividing membrane between them

My boys are identical and we were told that right from the start

Mel