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| Home | About
Twins |
| What is the California Twin Program? First Letter That About Twins |
About one in every 50 Americans is a twin,
and about one in every three twins is an identical twin. Identical twins are fairly evenly
dispersed in the population, no matter when, where, or to whom they were born. Fraternal
twins, in contrast, vary substantially in frequency over the world, being common among the
pregnancies of older women, especially common among families with roots in Africa, and
relatively rare among those of Asian heritage. Half of the fraternal twin pairs are
composed of individuals of different sex. As the use of fertility drugs to assist women
with conception have become more common, the frequency of fraternal twinning has also.
Most twins know if they are fraternal, because they simply don’t look at all alike.
Pairs who are confused within their own families or in their own schoolroom are almost
always identical, even when the mother has been told that they are fraternal on the basis
of the look of the placenta. Fraternal twins may seem to share the same placenta and
identical twins may seem not to. Sometimes it is necessary to do laboratory analysis,
especially when the twins disagree. |
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