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Home › Articles › Preparing for Pregnancy › Multiple Pregnancy

Multiple Pregnancy

Too Much of a Good Thing?

By Michele St. Martin

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According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the number of twins born increased from more than 68,000 in 1980 to more than 104,000 in 1997.

While twinning rates have increased for all age groups, the increases were most dramatic among women 30 and over (the age group most likely to take advantage of ART). Twin birth rates increased by 41 percent for women in their 30s, by 63 percent for women 40 to 44 years old and by nearly 1,000 percent among women 45 to 49 years of age. Most of the women in this last age group used donor ovum (eggs donated by younger, fertile women). There were more twins born to women ages 45 to 49 in 1997 than during the entire decade of the 1980s.

Three or More?
While identical triplets – or even quadruplets – are not unheard of, they are very rare. Most "higher order multiples" (triplets or higher) are the result of ART, though not always of in vitro fertilization (IVF). According to Dr. Lisa Erickson, a reproductive endocrinologist in Minneapolis, superovulatory drugs coupled with intrauterine insemination (IUI) can also produce a higher order multiple pregnancy.

In cases where a woman has many egg follicles, thus increasing her chances of multiple pregnancy, Dr. Erickson says that cancelling the cycle may be a smart option. "Mentioning the McCaugheys (the Iowa family with septuplets) has helped me cancel cycles without much protest," she says. Dr. Erickson notes that sometimes cancelling a cycle is clearly the best option, but at other times, things aren't as clear-cut. "Sometimes you are looking at an informed risk."


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