March 12, 2021

Anna Murray 

According to the latest comprehensive study published on March 12 in Human Reproduction, one of the world’s leading reproductive medicine journals, there are more human twins being born at a record high. The article "Twin Peaks: more twinning in humans than ever before" are co-authored by Professor Christiaan Monden at Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, University of Oxford (UK), Professor Gilles Pison at French Institute for Demographic Studies, French Museum of Natural History (France), and Professor Jeroen Smits at Global Data Lab, Institute for Management Research, Radboud University (the Netherlands).

The study has evidence out of 112 countries proving the cause of twin births from the increasing availability of medically assisted reproduction (MAR) and women’s role in delayed childbearing. As for MAR, human twin births are related to not only IVF (in vitro fertilization) techniques, but also simpler methods such as ovarian stimulation and artificial insemination.

The twin peaks phenomenon first started in wealthier countries in the 1970s and reached emerging economies in Asia and Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s, spread to more prosperous parts of South Asia and Africa after 2000. Since the 1980s there are more than 1.6 million newborn twins each year worldwide. The rate of human twins has increased by a third from 9 to 12 every 1000 deliveries which means one in every 42 newborn babies is a twin.

The researchers plan to update their research on the early 2020s to twinning rates and the effect of the spread of MAR.

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