What are the chances?

[RueDeWakening]

Hi,

We have 2 children currently. My DS, now 18 months, is a surviving triplet. They would have been identical, but we lost the others to TTTS even though I had laser ablation as soon as it was picked up at a regular scan. We are hoping to TTC #3 early next year and I'm arranging to chat with my consultant towards the end of the year to go through risks etc. In the meantime though, does anyone know what the chances are that we could conceive multiples again? And if we did, and they were identical again, whether there's a higher risk of TTTS given that we had it last time.

Any research/Dr opinions etc more than welcome.

Thanks very much.

Hi
I have id twin boys so have read a bit of twin info, I think I've read the following:
There is a 1 in 300 chance of having identical twins.
One in 67 pregnanciesc is multiple.
One third of twin pregnancies are identical.
I hope this info is correct.
Can't help on anything else though sorry.
All the very best of luck x

Hi Rue,

"If a woman has one set of identicals, her chance of having another is 1 in 70,000 or less." from this website: twinstwice.com/twins.html
So highly unlikely - there is no increased risk in id twins happening after a previous set according to any research I can find. Which makes it vanishingly unlikely for the TTTS to be an issue at all.

Good luck with TTC and I hope that your consultant can set your mind at rest. It must have been very tough during your last pregnancy and you must be really worried about everything

Im one of the unusual ones with 2 sets of twins. The girls are def identical as we have had them tested and just awaiting the results of the boys test but everyone thinks identical again which is quite unusual apparently.

I also have two sets of twins and I think that when we looked into the odds of having another multiple birth, if your twins (or more) were identical then you had a significantly higher chance of future multiples BUT if your twins-or-more were identical then that was a totally random thing and you were no more likely than anyone else to have another multiple pregnancy. We looked into all this when we were trying to decide whether to take out "twin insurance" for my second pregnancy!

I have also heard that if you get pg through IVF then there is a higher chance of the fertilised egg splitting to create id twins/triplets. Not sure how accurate this is though.

sorry that makes no sense!

Should have said if your twins (or more) were NON-identical then you had a significantly higher chance of future multiples

bella is right. Chances of multiple birth are raised. Sonographer who saw our twins had just had to give the news to a friend that after having 1 4yo and 2yo twins they were now expecting TRIPLETS . I was more than a little worried when expecting dc4..but she turned out to be a singleton thankfully!