On December 21st National Geographic will premier In The Womb: Identical Twins which will follow twins from the embryo with all the latest technology to their behavior and interests while grown. The touch on many points that we are all curious about including nature v. nurture, personality traits and separation. To read more click here.
I think this will be very interesting, especially for those who have twins or are a twin.
Im happy to know I am not the only one who is totally flabergasted by the amount of twins that are being had these days. Just when you thought the population might go down a bit with the loss of the baby boomers, twins are making it up fast. Here is an article I found to be insightful…
“Walk around the Upper West Side with a double stroller, as I do from time to time, and it’s amazing how long it can take to make it to Fairway. An older gentleman wants to know whether there were twins in the family. A middle-aged woman needs to stop and list every pair of twins she’s come to know in a five-block radius. There are many, many, many young twins in that five-block radius. The listing of them takes a long time. There are twins on 72nd Street and two sets in her building alone and girl twins on the corner and boy twins she always sees at the Starbucks … Is it something in the water?
This person invariably wants the parent of twins to share in her incredulity at the freak nature of so many twins proliferating in so concentrated an area. Never mind that the same abundance quite likely exists in most gentrified areas of the five boroughs, the kinds of places inhabited by two-career families, or women who had a good long run of New York dating before settling down to start a family in their mid-30s.
Of course, there’s nothing freakish or remarkable about how so many twins came to crowd the preschools of New York City. Older mothers are more prone to throwing off two eggs at once, but they’re also more likely to have trouble conceiving, and opting for in vitro fertilization. (The number of twins nationwide has increased by 65 percent in the past two decades.)
Maybe Jennifer Lopez, who, her father announced on TV last week, is expecting twins, is one of those two-eggs-per-cycle women; maybe, as her father suggested, it’s in the genes (his sister has twins). Or maybe she opted for reproductive technology, as do so many other women in New York and Los Angeles in their 30s and 40s. As one friend (with twins) responds when she’s asked if there are a lot of twins in her family, “No, but there are a lot at our fertility clinic.”
Because the pregnancy rate is higher the more embryos are transferred, doctors in the United States often encourage women to transfer at least two, and the older the woman, the harder they push her to transfer three or more. Don’t worry, the doctor will assure an aspiring mother, the chances of getting pregnant with twins, should you transfer two embryos, is only about 20 percent.
What isn’t made clear (and what the would-be mother is usually too rattled to ask) are the odds of conceiving twins should the in vitro actually work, and that answer is around 33 percent. To believe that the reproductive technology will work is to accept the high probability that the future will involve endless jokes about double trouble, and yes, there will double trouble, as well as double joy, triple sleeplessness and so much artful juggling that simply leaving the house on time makes the stagecraft of Cirque du Soleil look banal.
One could stop here to imagine the way the world will look when so many children in New York come of age as dualities. Will the three sets of twins in Zoe’s kindergarten class leave her feeling that she’s missing an essential other half? Will life as a twin be an easier experience when it’s so much less of an abnormality?
If all goes as expected, however, the twins glut we’re experiencing now will not be a permanent facet of life in the city. Instead, there will most likely be a 10- or 15-year window that will be known as the twins years. A 37-year-old-man named Max will mention at some dinner party in 2039 that he’s actually a twin, and the host will say, oh yes, that makes sense, you’re the right age, aren’t you — fraternal, of course? Keep reading →
The shortest living male twins are John and Greg Rice of the Florida who are 34″ tall. The shortest females are Dorene Williams and Darlene McGregor of USA who are 4ft 1″. The shortest of all time were Matjus and Bela Matina of Hungary (later of USA) who were both 30″ tall.
The Presley’s will not be leaving the building anytime soon considering twins run very deep in the genetics of this family.
Lisa Marie (40) gave birth to twin daughters today. Her father was a twin and her mother’s younger brother was a twin as well.
Check out this picture….I think I can tell what she is saying!
Here are some helpful tips for those who are expecting to have twins.
1. Join a twins club. Talk with others who have twins.
2. Find distinctive names for both babies to grow into their own people. Please don’t refer to them as the twins!
3. Give them different colored bedding and clothes to be able to tell them apart. At first you may want to use wrist bands.
4. You may feel a preference for one twin over the other but in time that will subdue.
5. Promote them being their own person while still allowing them to compliment one another.
6. Seek and accept help. It’s hard enough to raise one baby much less two!
7. Cat nap whenever you can. They say if you run the vaccuumm the white noise will put them to sleep letting you catch some Z’s in the meantime.
8. Save yourself the headache and create a routine for everything.
9. Don’t feel bad about spending more time with one twin versus the other. Some babies are simply more fussy than the others. In the future you can make it up to the less attention craved twin.
10. Let Dad help! Split time and attention with your twins by involving the other active parent.
Carol Banski writes us: Our twins were born at 124 days early and they are both still alive. Born at 22 weeks we were told we had a zero % chance of survival. Kay was 1lb 2oz and 11 3/4 inches Nick 1lb 5oz and 11 1/2 inches. Despite the fact that they have had serious complications and have both lost their vision due to being so premature (that they never developed enough retina) they are wonderful and I could not love them more. We still spend a fair amount of time at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minneapolis but for the most part we are home and everyone who has ever met the babies will tell you that they are truly miracles.
Halloween is a time for creativity and fun to let loose through pumpkin carving, decorating and costume production. This is also a great opportunity for those who have twins and triplets because there are many themes that you can use to create tons of fun this year.
Boo times two: Halloween Costumes for Twins, Triplets and Multiples is great resource to get starting thinking about what you can do for with your children this year.
We are DIEING to know what you’ve come up with!
The world’s first test tube twins are Stephen and Amanda Mays born June 5 1981.
Cirque Du Soleil, a French Canadian circus with shows running in Las Vegas and Disneyworld, has 4 sets of twins working for them. Sarah and Karine Steben work in Las Vegas at O at the Bellagio hotel doing trapeze work. Elsie and Serenity Smith are touring Asia and the Pacific with the show Saltimbanco doing a trapeze act that the Steben twins originated. The Gutszmit twins, Daniel and Jacek, are identical males who do a hand balancing act in the Saltimbanco show. There is also a set of identical twin brothers, Bruce and Stacey Bilodeau working on the show at Disneyworld, called La Nouba. They perform on the German wheel, and appeared in Cirque’s 1991 tour of Nouvelle Experience.
New York City’s Twinsworld Restaurant employs 37 sets of twins & it is a requirement to be hired.
The tallest living male twins are Michael and James Lanier of Michigan who are 7ft 4in, born November 27 1969. The tallest females are Heather and Heidi Burge who are 6ft 4 3/4in. Heidi plays for the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks. The previous record was held by Pat and Pam Terry of Ohio, who are both 6ft tall. The tallest in the UK of all time were the Knipe brothers, born in 1761, who both reached 7ft 2in. The height record holders in the UK as of 1990 were Andrew and Timothy Hull who were born October 24 1968 and are 6ft 9.3in and 6ft 10.3in.