Twin Birth Rate at All-Time High in United States: CDC Report

According to an annual Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the rate of twin births in the United States in 2014 reached all-time high. It was found that in 2014 alone there were 33.9 twins per 1,000 births.

The CDC experts said that although the rate of twin birth has reached a record high but are up only .2 from 2013. In 2013 the twin birth rate was 33.7 twins per 1,000 births.

The trend of twin birth in past few decades has been dramatic, said experts. The twinning rate rose 76% from 1980 to 2009, the report said.

As per the report, this trend has been due to highly improved fertility therapies, such as ovulation-inducing drugs, and assisted reproductive techniques like as in-vitro fertilization.

In case of In-vitro fertilization (IVF), conceiving twins has become more common because doctors implant more than one embryo. And when there are multiple embryos, the chances of pregnancy increases and so does the chances of having twins.

A Newsweek investigation in November 2014 revealed that twins that are conceived through IVF are more likely to be born early than single babies. Another report said, “Infants born in twin and triplet deliveries are at higher risk of adverse birth outcomes compared with singletons. In 2014 more than one of every two twins and more than nine of every ten triplets were born preterm or low birthweight”.

In 2014, there were 3,988,076 registered births in United States, almost 50,000 more births than in 2013. The majority of these babies were first or second children for a mother, almost 21,589 were the eighth (or over) child, showed report.

According to a report from the I4U, the CDC links three-quarter of triplets and one-third of twins born in the US in 2013 to IVF procedures, and the reason for this is because fertility doctors implant as many as three viable embryos in the woman’s womb against the hope that at least one of them will be viable and result to pregnancy.

Incidentally, most older women succeed at having all the two or three embryos live, resulting in twins or triplets. Health authorities have since 1998 issued a new guideline that discouraged doctors from implanting two or three fertilized eggs, pointing out the fact that improved medical technology now makes only one embryo to result in pregnancy.

The twin birth rate has been climbing most years since 1980 among white, black and Hispanic women. Between 2013 and 2014, however, it only went up among black women, by 4%, whereas the rates did not change among white and Hispanic women.

Births of triplets and higher multiples were on the rise from 1980 to 1998, when the rate peaked at 193.5 multiples for every 1,000 births. But unlike twin births, the rate has been declining for 20 years. Between 2013 and 2014, it dropped 5% to 113.5 per 1,000 births, told the CanadaJournal.

The UPI notes that, The twin birth rate has been rising for white, African-American and Hispanic women since 1980. But while rates didn't change for white or Hispanic women in 2013-2014, the rate continued to rise another 4 percent for African-American women. The reason is not specifically known, however more women are giving birth later in life, which has a higher occurrence of twins, health officials said and more are using in vitro fertilization.

Meanwhile, as the twin birth rate rose, the rate for triplets or higher-order dropped another 5 percent (113.5 per 100,000 births), and has plummeted 40 percent since 1998.

Health
Research
News
CDC