Hi there,

My partner and I are planning on TTC in January, and I was just wondering if anyone knows anything about increased changes of conceiving twins based on family history?

I have no history of twins in my family, but DH is a twin, and says there is atleast one other set of twins in his family history that he knows of.

Thanks in advance for any info.

Manda

Planning on TTC in January 2005

Identical twins are a fluke of nature & could happen to anyone.

Fraternal twins are passed through the mothers side ie, my Grandmas sister had twins & it passed to me.

You might be lucky/unlucky. Best of luck.

Cheers

Justine
Nick
[img]http://www.geocities.com/jussy227/eb.txt[/img]

The reason fraternal twins run in families is because women can inherit the ability to multi-ovulate. It can be passed through the paternal line of the mother too. eg; if the women in the father's family have the ability to produce more than one egg per cycle that can be passed onto his daughters. Daughters of women who have had fratenal twins are almoat twice as likely to have fratenals themselves. Of course this wouldn't be the case with assisted conception.?

Regards Sharyn
Mum to Meg Alice 14/4/99
Hannah Rose & Josie Mae 22/3/04

Hi MandaPanda

I am pg now with twins. My grandmother on my father's side gave birth to identical twin boys - my father is a twin. They didn't have ultrasounds in those days, she was just told, "hang on a minute, there's another one coming!". We always thought it would be carried on to one of the 6 grandchildren - and it was lucky me!

My mother was speaking to a lady with twin girls at a shopping centre recently (funny how she's now very interested in how it all works - sweetie!) and the mother said that they were in two separate sacks but are identical. I always thought that identical twins were from an egg that split? So I guess identical can be fraternal too? I am a bit confused with this too....

TTC since May '03
Clomid Cycle #4 BFP!
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Just to answer Drew's last point, yes identical twins can have two sacs, if the embryo splits in the first three days. This is what happened with my sons. They are not fraternal, I just had a fraternal-like pregnancy. There is a lot of confusion about this, even from doctors.

Good luck TTC Manda.

Belinda

Caelan & Liam 25th January 2004

Hi Manda, the twins in your DH's family won't affect your chances of conceiving fraternal twins. Identical twins are completely random, and I don't think there is anything you can do to increase your chances of conceiving them.

To clarify the sac issue, there are 2 types of sacs in the uterus, an inner sac (amnion) and an outer sac (chorion). Identical twins can have their own inner and outer sacs, OR share both the inner and the outer sacs, OR have their own inner sacs, but share the outer sac. Most identical twins will be this latter type (mono-chorion, di-amniot). Some identical twins who share both the inner & outer sacs can be very close to being co-joined (siamese) twins.

I did lots of research on this because my twins had twin-twin transfusion syndrome.

Narelle




Narelle 30
DH Craig 30
Id twins Kelsey & Jenna, born 19th Sept 04, 7 weeks early!

Just on this point I read on a website somewhere a funny line about fathers thinking they had caused their wife to have fraternal twins... it went something like

No matter how great a guys sperm are no man's sperm was every so marvelous to cause a woman to ovulate twice!

I found this particuarly amusing as my MIL still says that it must have been her son's genes that caused me to have twins... my girls identical though and it still rings true as not matter how great his sperm are they are not good enough to cause my egg to split!

Narelle - I also read up on the amnion and chorion arrangments with twins (The Australian Twins Registry site has a good explaination of this with diagrams etc which make it much easier to understand.) as we had MZ twins who shared a chorion and initally we though they also shared an amnion which paniced us a little as there is VERY low survival rates for twins who share amnions, but thankfully they had a very thin membrane between them. We also had fairly severe TTTS and I am still slightly obsessed with researching it!

I hope your girls are doing well Narelle and please PM if you'd like to talk to another TTTS mum!

Kate

Kate, is there a website for The Australian Twins Registry? and since you have mentioned it, can you let me know what TTTS is and where to find out more about it and when this can be diagnised????

Taaa

TTC since May '03
Clomid Cycle #4 BFP!
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Thanks to everyone for the replies... I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed! LOL! DH was so sure that his champion sperm would be the product of many multiple mini-DHs... Teeheehee



Planning on TTC in January 2005

Drew I was going to PM this to you but you have it disabled so everyone will have to put up with it

The twins registry site is
http://www.twins.org.au/

and TTTS stands for Twin to Twin Transfusion Sydrome... it's a complication associated with MZ twins who share a placenta. There are a few of us around who have been through it. If you want more details please PM me or email
katespaces@yahoo.com.au

Kate
Kate

Thanks so much for the website Kate! I will have a read of this.....and thanks for the info on TTTS!

Have a nice weekend

xxx

TTC since May '03
Clomid Cycle #4 BFP!
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