In the olden days in most rural areas of Africa, people tend to see the birth of twins as a taboo. As a result, twins were either killed or thrown into “evil forest” with the mother. But today, modernisation and education have thrown much light in a lot of facts surrounding twins and their birth.
And nowadays, a good number of families see twins as a blessing rather than course. This has led many into believing that having twins are a matter of luck and hereditary. And many women have gone extra mile in an attempt to conieve and give birth to twins.
There are numerous facts about the chances of having twins,triplets etc,some of which are stated here .
-An average woman has a 3% chance of conceiving and giving birth to twins.
-It is believed that African women have the highest chance of giving birth to twins while Asian women have the least chance.
-Virtually any woman can give birth to identical twins while fraternal or non identical twins birth is hereditary and runs in maternal (mother’s) gene.
-Older women have higher chances of giving birth to twins. This is because, more than one egg is released monthly in older women prior to menopause .
– Women that are taking fertility drugs have 80% chances of having multiple births. This is always the major reason behind numerous multiple births in women that have been childless for many years who embark on taking fertility drugs.
-In as much as the woman can conceive and give birth to identical twins, she has no control over the sex of the babies. Only the male factor or chromosome determines sex of the babies. The woman sex chromosome is constant (x chromosome ) . While the male chromosome is made up of x and Y chromosome. If the man during copulation releases only x , the babies automatically are girls. But if he releases y , the babies are automatically boys .
-The man has no control over the chromosome he releases.