Midwives, just how common is it

[Genesis]

for a woman to be pregnant with twins and miscarry one of them very early, while the other one survives? It's relevent to my current studies and I haven't been able to find the answer. Thanks.


Michele

[applejuice]

I am not a midwife.

However in the days before legalized, on demand abortion, a woman would miscarry, go in for the d & c, and then the doctor would find the woman to still be pregnant and/or abort the second twin and accuse the woman of tricking him. I knew nurses from that era, who told me this was extremely common, and could not say anything to the patient even though they saw it happen frequently.

This is anecdotal. Sorry. But I assume it is true.

I am sure doctors see a large placenta at birth, and know it is because it was meant for two babies. I would doubt that they would say anything to the mother. Maybe it would be in the records. I do not know how that would be recorded.

[hippiemum21580]

This is very interesting to me as I myself lost a twin very early on with my last pregnancy and am curious how common it is.

[Sileree]

No idea how common it is, but my boyfriend's father was a twin. His Mom didn't know she was pregnant because she miscarried the other. This was in the early 50s, and he was breech.

[wannabe]

In the US: The frequency of multiple gestations is 3.3-5.4% at 8 weeks' gestation. Vanishing twin syndrome occurs in 21-30% of multifetal gestation.

http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic3411.htm

So that's 0.7% to 1.6% of all pregnancies

HTH