Sister *high risk* pregnancy with identical twins at 42 - anyone have advice?

[FairhairedandFrustrated]

Hi there,

my sister posted last night but no-one answered her post - she is very worried and I suggested that mumsnet may find her the answers.

She's 42, has had 3 healthy boys and is now 19 weeks pregnant with identical twins.

She has been told that she's a high risk of the babies developing 'twin to twin transfusion' and that if that happens she would have to go to London to separate the placenta and a high chance she could lose both her babies :(

Does anyone have any experience of this? We've not heard of it before and she's very worried.

Any help for her would be very much appreciated.

I'm sorry, I read her post last night but have no personal experience of TTTS, my twins are non identical, so hoped someone more knowledgable would come along. As far as I understand from some of the twin pregnancy books I read TTTS is reasonably rare and I don't think age factors in it much, I think its more just luck how the placenta develops as to whether on e twin is getting more than the other. There are a few ladies who post on a thread in the Pregnancy topic here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/pregnancy/1191827-Twin-Twin-Transfusion-Syndrome They will have more information.
Hope this helps

Thank-you so much Ginger, I'll have a look and point her in that direction!

Hi,

I had TTTS with my last pregnancy (ID triplets). We have a single survivor. I developed acute TTTS at about 22 weeks, picked up in a scan at 23+3. Same day referral to a local London teaching hospital that offers laser ablation surgery. Op done under local the next morning. Two babies survived the op and the immediate aftermath, but one passed away at some point over the next 2 weeks.

If she's been told she's at a high risk of developing TTTS then have they already picked up on a size difference/fluid levels between the two? This is an earlyish sign of TTTS at the point it can be considered "chronic". There's normally a better outcome for this type than the acute one that I had.

Re risk of losing both babies - from memory we were told that there was a 25% chance of there being no survivors following the op. 25% that all would survive, and 50% that "at least one" would survive. However, we were also told that doing nothing meant that there would be no survivors. The day we were treated, T1 was measuring 19 weeks rather than 23+, T2 was the recipient so bigger but going into heart failure due to excess fluid & bloodflow putting his internal organs under too much stress, T3 was smaller still.

The op itself was done in a similar way to an amnio - punch a hole into the uterus with a big needle, then they poked a fibre optic camera and a laser down it, and it was all visible on the telly for me & DH to watch. Surreal doesn't begin to describe it, and I was high on whatever they'd given me and didn't shut up once :o

If your sister wants to ask any questions then PM me.

Thank-you Rue. My sister isn't well up on using forums so I shall print this off to show her.

As far as I know, they checked kidneys/fluid etc and all was OK at the last scan -she has another tomorrow, she has them fortnightly.

She was just really worried on Friday night & I suggested she may get some answers here.