Hi, my name is Mai and it was always my dream to have twins growing up
So, you know when I entered the childbearing phase of my life
I googled the crap out of how to have twins, how to increase your chances of having twins,
What are the odds of having twins?
Is there anything I can do to get twins into my body?
and I'm about to break that down for you right now because somehow my
Psychotic wish to have two babies at the same time came true
I'll start with the odds of having natural or really the better word for it is spontaneous twins
And then I'll move into actions you can take to increase your odds of having twins
Alright, let's jump into the video. But before we do I have to shamelessly plug my channel
Please like and subscribe if you have not already I make videos to inform and entertain moms
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Alright, let's get into it. Okay
so first
we'll start with identical twins because it's pretty easy to break down the odds of conceiving identical twins because they are completely
Spontaneous they don't run in families
There's nothing you can really do to increase your odds of conceiving identicals
They can put a man on the moon, but they still have no clue
Specifically what causes the egg to split to create identical twins?
across all races the odds of having identical twins is about three and every
1000 births so that's less than half a percent chance to have identical twins now fraternal czar a bit more
complicated to break down because there's a lot of moving parts and
Variables that increase and decrease a single person's odds of conceiving fraternal twins
Fraternal twins are two separate eggs
Fertilized by two separate sperm. So genetically it's the same as just any other brother-sister relationship
And in order for you know two eggs to be fertilized
The mother has to drop multiple eggs at a time
So fraternal are really dependent on the mother's ability to hyper ovulate
Which is a fancy word for dropping more than one egg per cycle
The fraternal twin irate is the highest. It's ever been at just around 3%
Thanks to advances in modern medicine and IVF and other fertility drugs
But if you want to know specifically what the chances are or spontaneous
Fraternal twins. It's anywhere between one to one-and-a-half percent
So I am going to break down for you
Let me log into my computer. Come on load load
Alright, so what I have up on the screen right now is a little PowerPoint slide that I put together
because
I am psycho, and I wanted to know
specifically
What the odds are of conceiving just any type of twins, which you can see up top 14 in
1,000
Worldwide are twins
Spontaneously, so this is just you know, no fertility drugs no ivf
This is just random spontaneity in the in the world of conceiving twins
14 in 1,000 births worldwide are twins. So you got about a
1.4 chance of spontaneously conceiving twins based on that number of
those 14
Spontaneous twins three of those are identical twins per 1000 births. So if you conceived twins
spontaneously you have a
21.4 chance of those twins being identical and a
78.6% chance of those twins being fraternal and then I haven't even broken out further from there
So if your dream is to have boy-girl twins
Then you're in luck because those are the most common type of twins with
39.3% of twins
spontaneously
Birthed into the world are boy-girl twins, then girl-girl fraternal twins or boy boy fraternal twins
It's just under 20% of all twins. Then the least common type of twin is
Just girl girl or boy boy identical twins coming in at just over 10 and of all twins
So that might have been a little bit more twin information than you ever. Thought you needed to know
But I thought it was cool information. So it's a fun fact you can share with your friends
All right. So now that we've broken down the odds of all the different types of twins that you can have
Let's move into what you can do specifically to increase your odds of conceiving twins if that's what you want to do
now as I said before the odds of having identical twins is
Completely random and spontaneous. There's nothing you can really do to
Increase your odds of conceiving identical twins. I've heard that people that undergo IVF
do have slightly increased odds of conceiving identical twins, but it's not as you know, foolproof or
clear-cut as if you want twins and you're doing IVF and you put two eggs into the
Little bucket of your uterus or whatever wherever it goes
I'm not a scientist, you know what I mean?
but when it comes to fraternal twins, there are some things set in stone in just your genetics in your body that
Some women are just more likely to hyper ovulate than others and I'll go over those things first that you can't control
but then there are some levers that you can pull to increase your body's ability to hyper ovulate per cycle and
I'll go over those last
So first, I'll read out the uncontrollable factors that increase your odds of fraternal twins
So the first one is your race
Likely to hyper ovulate so they're the least likely to have fraternal twins. You're right - also plays a factor
So being taller makes you more likely to conceive fraternal twins
Specifically being over 5 foot 5 inches being a heavier weight makes you more likely to conceive fraternal twins
Having a BMI over 30
Then the most common one is that it just runs in your family and it's in your genetics too hyper ovulate
So if you fraternal twin yourself or your mother is a fraternal twin your odds of hyper
Ovulation are up significantly
So it's not uncommon when you do meet someone who conceived fraternal twins spontaneously
It's not uncommon for them to have a grandma who was a twin or their mom's twin or they have twin siblings or their twin
Themselves. It's a very strong genetic component
and the last one that's an uncontrollable factor that makes it more likely for you to conceive fraternal twins is
being
Of advanced maternal age. I don't like that term. Um
Just being over the age of 35
Your body is more likely to drop more eggs the older you get
Now for the controllable factors what you can do to increase your odds of conceiving twins
This is what I was obsessed with before. I
Did end up conceiving my identical twins as one I'll read through next. So the first one is
Ian's I am I think is just like a sweet potato. I don't know google it
People in nigeria have the highest rate of twin births. It is observed that they eat lots of yams, which are full of progesterone and
phytoestrogens which may be what leads to the hyper ovulation and
Just like coughs. Oh, my eyes are
really watery
not crying
You know, it's really amazing having twins
Number two eat dairy in a study. It was observed that women who consumed more dairy are five times
more likely to have twin babies in comparison to women who don't drink a lot of dairy that
Is a huge increase. So if you really want to hyper ovulate, I guess drink a lot of dairy
Next is increasing your folic acid or folate consumption
You can get folic acid or folate and pretty much any prenatal on the market
It's kind of the number one important vitamin to get into your body when you are pregnant
It is not a hundred percent known why this helps but it's speculated that if you're getting sufficient folic acid
You're more likely to hyper al you are more likely to hyper ovulate and increases the odds of implantation
All right. So this next control whole factor that increases your odds of having twins
I feel like is kind of hilarious and in some of the twin mom groups that I'm in I know
That some of the twin moms
conceive their twins while doing this not knowing that it increased their odds of conceiving twins, so
Breastfeeding try to get pregnant when you are still breastfeeding one study found that women that were breastfeeding when they conceived were
Nine times more likely to conceive twins
Nine times more likely than women who were not breastfeeding
now
If you're watching this
You might be shocked, too
Because a huge myth is that when you're breastfeeding it's like birth control and you can't get pregnant
and so there are some women that just use breastfeeding as their
contraception to prevent having more babies and
clearly
that is not a very good idea because you are nine times more likely to conceive twins if you are breastfeeding, so
Now you can scare the crap out of any of your friends who tell you that fun fact when they're breastfeeding their baby
Thinking that they're not gonna get pregnant
You could get two babies then the last one which is I pretty obvious is undergoing fertility
Treatments in the last 30 years. The twinning rate has more than doubled. Thanks to
Modern medicine and different fertility treatments that you can do. I never
Personally went to a fertility clinic myself. However, I have heard from friends that
had trouble conceiving tell me that their doctors actually tried to
advise against putting in 2 eggs when they're doing IVF because
There are a lot more risks when it comes to carrying two babies versus one
It is considered a high-risk pregnancy, but if you really really want twins and you're having trouble conceiving
Your you may already be seeing a specialist. So definitely talk to your fertility specialist
I'm filled with more fun facts not actual medical advice so gonna end it there
So those are the controllable factors that can increase your odds of hyper ovulation for the most part though
I think we can all agree that it's probably just luck of the draw
The last thing that I did that has no clinical research behind it
But I feel like I got I gotta say it. Maybe maybe there's some people who do believe in this and
While it is probably just luck of the draw. I feel like I at least have to mention
This is my entire life. I have put it out into the universe that I want twins. I want twins
I told everyone I want twins I prayed on it
I mean
Again, maybe it didn't do anything. Probably didn't do anything
But it doesn't hurt to put things out into the universe and it doesn't hurt to pray on it
maybe if it even increased my odds point zero zero zero zero zero
One percent it's worth it if that's what you really want and it doesn't cost you a dime to put it out there
So why not?
Positive vibes at least, you know, maybe decreases your stress makes you a happier person and maybe happy people have twins
I don't know. I mean I
Don't know. I'm happy people up to its two I guess
Please like and subscribe if you have not already won like equals one positive
Twin five out into the universe for yourself
I hope this video helps you get the twins that you always wanted or
If you already have twins and you watch this just for fun
I hope it gave you some fun facts that you can share with your friends or to the millions of strangers
That will be asking you for the rest of your life how you conceive twins?
It's a very personal question, but people for some reason think it's okay to ask how you got pregnant. There's an obvious answer but
Everyone will ask you how you got twins
If you are pregnant with twins or have twins leave a comment down below of the craziest thing anyone has ever asked you about
Carrying twins or having twins, and if you're trying to get pregnant with twins ask me a crazy question
I will pretty much answer anything. Thanks so much for watching. See you in the next video. Bye