When You're Having Multiples

- Melany Bendix

WORLDWIDE THERE’S BEEN a dramatic increase in the number of multiple births (two or more babies). In the United States alone the number of twin births has increased by 70 percent since 1980, and that’s thought to be the pattern in many developed countries.

The most obvious cause is the rise of the fertility treatment in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) – the fertilisation of eggs by sperm outside the body.

Dr Nomathamsanqa Matebese, a specialist in reproductive medicine at the Cape Fertility Clinic, says multiples are conceived during IVF when more than one fertilised egg is transferred into the uterine cavity.

She says that scientific advancements in methods of embryo selection have reduced the chances of a multiple pregnancy in IVF. “Most IVF specialists are now doing single embryo transfers, with a good pregnancy rate and a reduction in multiple pregnancy rates resulting from IVF treatment,” she explains.

But the chances of getting more than one baby through IVF is still much higher: “In our clinic, if two embryos are transferred into the uterine cavity, the likelihood of a twin pregnancy is 20 percent.”

Another reason the multiple birth rate has, well, multiplied, over the past three decades is that women are choosing to have babies later in life.