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- Title
Why So Many Twins and Triplets?
- Authors
Klitsch, Michael
- Abstract
This article focuses on multiple births in the U.S. Twin births were about 20 percent more common by the end of the 1980s than at the beginning of the decade, according to an analysis of natality records from the National Center for Health Statistics, while the incidence of triplet or higher order births doubled over the same period. Twin births jumped by 23 percent among white women, compared with a rise of 9 percent among African American women. Similarly, the rate of triplet or higher order births climbed by 124 percent among whites, but did not change among African Americans or Hispanics. In 1989, triplet births were two-thirds more likely among college-educated women than among women of comparable age who had less than a high school education. The investigators attribute these patterns to increasing use of fertility-stimulating drugs, and cite a need for the development of an effective fertility-stimulating therapy that carries a lower risk for twin and higher order births, since multiple pregnancies are much more likely to lead to infant mortality and low birth weight.
- Subjects
UNITED States; MULTIPLE birth; TWINS; TRIPLETS; WHITE women; AFRICAN American women
- Publication
Family Planning Perspectives, 1995, Vol 27, Issue 2, p52
- ISSN
0014-7354
- Publication type
Article