7 things that boost a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant with twins

Oh, those little bundles of joy. Between the crying, the feeding, the drain on finances (*fall dramatically to floor*) and the lack of sleep – mums and dads still love and cherish their little ones. A miraculous force of nature really.

So what has to happen to make two of these precious babies at once? Or rather, what factors increase a woman’s chances of having twins? 1. Fertility Treatments According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, a woman is 11 times more likely to have a multiple birth (twins, triplets etc.) using IVF (in vitro fertilisation) compared to that of a natural conception. It’s not known exactly why, but ever since IVF became popular, so have multiple births! 2. What you eat helps make baby A previous study shows that women who consume dairy are five times more likely to have twins than women who consume no animal products. The cause is thought to be due to a protein named insulin-like growth factor (IGF) which makes the ovaries sensitive and they end up releasing more than one egg. It’s likely this is more prevalent in the US where growth hormone is put into animal feed. 3. Your size It turns out if you’re tall and essentially have more room to hold more than one baby, you might just find yourself in that very situation. Similar to the above, taller women have more of an insulin-like growth factor which has been linked to multiple births as a particular study showed women who gave birth to two or more babies were on average more than an inch taller compared to those who gave birth to just one baby. 4. Your genes If it runs in the family you might find yourself pregnant with two… or more babas. This however only relates to non-identical or fraternal twins as there’s no evidence identical twins run in families. Non-identical twins come about when two eggs are fertilised by two sperm. For this to happen it means a woman’s ovaries released more than one egg (hyperovulation). The genes that increase your chances of hyperovulation can be passed from parents to children. (NHS) Having identical twins means the one egg that was released split in two and therefore these babies will have the exact same genes, unlike fraternal twins who have the same difference in genetics as any usual siblings would. They might even have different blood types. 5. Prior births Women who have given birth before or have had fraternal twins have an increased chance of having… wait for it… more twins! 6. Age As women get older they are also more likely to release more than one egg during their menstrual cycle. This of course can result in an increased chance of making twins and this is seen more so in women over 35. 7. ‘The pill’ If you’ve just stopped using your birth control, it’s thought that the ovaries can hyperovulate (evidently they get angry) and release more than one egg in a cycle, increasing the chance of twins. A 1977 study point out that this increase can be as much as 70 percent. But that was 1977…  so ehh... might need an update on that one. And a final interesting fact – twins are most prevalent within the African population and are least common in Asia. We suppose us Irish are somewhere in the middle so.