Melissa’s Place

It seems like there are so many twins born these days. I had a friend who had twins soon before Sariah was born, I know 3 people who gave birth to twins this year and two more who are expecting twins this year. All in my little college town!

The first question many expectant and new parents of twins hear is “are they identical”? (My dad actually asked this question to my friend who had twins last year and she had a boy and a girl.) Many people have told me that the one ultrasound indicates they are identical and another will indicate they are not or the ultrasound technician is not able to tell. It can be difficult to tell in ultrasounds because while most of the time identical twins will share the same placenta, about 20 - 30% of the time they will have their own placenta.

Some people try to go by how much the babies look alike after they are born, while identical twins are more likely to look more like each other than fraternal twins, identical twins can have some different physical characteristics that can form either in the womb or by environmental factors as well as different allergies. The only way to be 100% sure if twins are identical it through a DNA test as identical twins have the same DNA.

I am an identical twin so genetically speaking when my twin sister has children our children will be more like half siblings than cousins! We haven’t had DNA testing done but my mom said that we shared the same placenta and also twins do not run in our family. There are unique cases where there are two more sets of identical twins in the family. Fraternal twins however usually run on the mothers side of the family.

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