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Tuesday 2 December 2008

Double trouble

Anthony Browne on the marked increase in the number of twins and its social and economic consequences

But the increase is also because women are having babies later, and older women are more likely to have twins. In the UK, only one in 150 teenage births is twins, by the late twenties it’s one in 78, by the late thirties it’s one in 46. Combine this with fertility treatment and you find that one in six women over 45 who are pregnant for the first time are having twins. Better nutrition means we are getting taller and healthier, and tall and healthy women have more twins.

Twins start off fragile, often extremely premature. They are high risk in many ways both before and after birth. Whereas it used to be that often only the stronger survived (as with Elvis and Liberace), modern medicine now ensures that almost always both survive.

Twins are, if non-identical, more likely to be parents of twins themselves. So not only are more twins surviving, but they are then producing more twins, spreading their twinny ways. But it won’t be a world of doppelgangers, nature’s clones running rings around law enforcement agencies and school exam systems. All these trends apply only to non-identical twins — the rate of identical twins, a die throw of nature, is remaining steady.

And the pace of conquest will vary from land to land. Nigeria is currently the twin capital of the world, its Yoruba women pump them out at four times the European average. In Japan, twins are still rare.

As the United Kingdom becomes the United Twindom, an anti-twin discrimination act will ensure that every shop in the country has doors and aisles wide enough for double-width buggies. When they become a majority, every house in the country will have to have its front door knocked down and rebuilt — wider.

But the social and economic impact could be the greatest. The pay gap between men and women will shrink as women take half the number of maternity leaves. Two-for-one deals will become the norm, and everyone will realise that sending one present for a joint birthday is a serious faux pas.

More articles from: Anthony Browne | this section

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