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Multiple Pregnancy

Too Much of a Good Thing?

By Michele St. Martin

The risks to the mother include preeclampsia, postpartum hemorrhage and anemia. Women who are pregnant with more than one child are much more likely to spend part of their pregnancy on bed rest in hopes that it will prolong the pregnancy. While most women are able to have relatively normal pregnancies and near-term births with twins, as the number of fetuses increases, so does the risk. For example, the rate of preterm delivery was 10 percent for singletons, 54.9 for twins and 93.6 for higher order multiples.

Drs. Keith, Klock and Gandhi stress the importance of patient education, including education about multifetal reduction. Multifetal reduction occurs when a woman who is pregnant with more than three fetuses undergoes a procedure to abort one or more of the fetuses in hopes of increasing the remaining fetuses' chances of survival. Dr. Erickson says that the possibility of multifetal reduction is discussed with every patient at her clinic.

Erica Whittley* says that she and her husband, Dave, were thrilled to learn, after five years of infertility treatment, that she was pregnant at last. When they learned, very early on, that there might be more than one baby, they were not prepared for what followed.

"I was 42," Whittley says. "We had just about given up on our chances of becoming pregnant. In fact, we were scheduled for an interview with an adoption agency."

The Whittleys learned that Erica was carrying five fetuses. "It is very hard to make the decision to selectively reduce when you have fought so hard to get pregnant," Whittley says. "But our doctor felt that I didn't have a good chance of carrying all the babies for very long. We sought counseling, and we decided that we would reduce in order to increase the chances of having at least one healthy baby."

Want to see more?

• Our Experiences With Twins
• High Tech Babies: In-vitro Fertilization
• You're Pregnant With Twins – Now Keep Those Babies in There!
• Two at Once: Pregnant With Twins
• Talk about it!

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