What is my percentage of having twins if my maternal grandmother had twins?

Question

my maternal grandmother had ferternal twins (my aunt and uncle) as fas as i know they are the only ones! i've done my research and know that it does not skip generations and does not come from the males side (my husband) i am also overweight and know that, that too can increase your chances, this would also be my third pregnacy and im 26 years old so what is my estimated chance of this happing to me?

Answer 1

The chance of twins (without fertility drugs) is never very high.  The kids of your aunt and uncle would have a higher chance then you, but it is always possible.  My Grandma is a twin and out of her 40 grand kids there is one set of twins (my brother and sister).  Your chance will also gets higher with age (my mom was 35 when she got pregnant with the twins), but the chance is still pretty small.

Good Luck!

Answer 2

In the United States, in the year 2000, there were:

118,916 Twin Births

6,742 Triplet Births

506 Quadruplet Births

77 Quintuplets & Other Higher Order Births

That is a 74 percent increase in the number of twin births from 1980.

And since there were just over 4 million births in the United States in 2000, about 3% of babies were born as a twin or higher order multiple (triplets, quads, etc.), which although not common, does mean that multiples are more common than many people believe.

So what is your chance of having more than one baby at a time?

Basically, it is 3% or 1 in 33.

There are things that can increase your chances of having a multiple birth, including a mother being 30 or over when she conceives. For example, while there is a 3% chance of having a multiple birth at age 25-29, it increases to 4% at 30-34 years and almost 5% at 35-39 years.

Other factors that can increase your chances of having twins include having a maternal family history of multiple births (fraternal), and of course, using fertility treatments (in vitro fertilization or fertility drugs).

Your chance of having twins is also influenced by your race (multiples are more common in African Americans and least common in Hispanics and Asians), how many times you have been pregnant (the chance of having twins increases with each pregnancy), and whether or not you have had twins already.

Keep in mind that statistics for birth rates and multiple births include all births, including those that were the result of fertility treatments and those that were spontaneous or 'natural'. So if you don't have any of the factors mentioned above that can increase your chance of having multiples, your chance is going to be a little less than 3%. The chance of having 'natural' fraternal twins is only about 1.7% or 1 in 60. The chances of having twins with the use of fertility treatments can be as high as 20-25%!

Of multiple births, the rate of fraternal twins has been increasing the most, and that makes sense since the chance of having fraternal twins is influenced by an advanced maternal age and the use of fertility treatments.

The chance of having identical twins has remained steady, and is about 0.4% or 1 in 250.

Other statistics:

chance of having conjoined twins: 1 in 50-80,000

chance of having 'natural' triplets: 1 in 8,100 (only about 30% of triplets are 'natural')

chance of having 'natural' quads: 1 in 729,000 (only about 6% of quads are 'natural')

chance of having 'natural' quints: 1 in 55,000,000