Fraternal or Identical Twins

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There are more twin babies conceived now than there used to be since the eighties. “One in every 30 babies born in 2009 was a twin (a 76 percent hike since 1980),” (Goldman, L. Web source). Twins are born in different varieties. They can be fraternal or they can be identical. Identical twins can be either both brothers or they can be both sisters. If they are sister and brother they are said to be fraternal. Fraternal twins are twins who do not look alike. Another term for fraternal twins is dizygotic. “...the mother contributes two eggs that each are fertilized in the womb by two different sperm cells from the father” (Baby2see, Web source). Identical twins are genetically identical. Another term for identical twins is monozygotic. “...one egg (zygote) from the mother is fertilized by one sperm from the father, and then very early in development the embryo splits and two fetuses grow” (Baby2see, Web source) .“Monozygotic twins are always of the same gender, except in extremely rare cases of chromosomal defect” (Prindle Fierro, P. Web source.) Whenever you see identical twins, they are either boy/boy or girl/girl. Rarely do you see identical twins that are girl/boy. A lot of people assume that identical twins are alike in every aspect. “For a long time identical twins were believed to be identical to a ridiculous degree. In early German folklore it was said that identical twins had the same number of hairs on their heads, though no mathematician is quoted as having made the count! Still, everyone believed that such a thing was possible, and these beliefs have a way of persisting today” (Gaddis, Vincent & Margaret, 1972 pp. 11). That would be astonishing if someone took time out of their day just to count if twins had the same a... ... middle of paper ... ...win sons twenty-five days apart. Similar twins were also reported in Bengal, born forty-five days apart. An Australian mother gave birth to her twins who were born fifty-six days apart. However, the record number of days between births seem to have occurred in 1846 in Strasbourg, France-a 137-day interval. On April 30 one infant was born, but the twin did not appear until September 13” (Gaddis, Vincent & Margaret, 1972 (pp. 35-36). It is possible for pregnant women to lose one twin in a miscarriage but still carry the second child to full term without any damage resulting to it. This has happened rather frequently. “Whether all these twins born far apart were identical or fraternal is not known. However, these twins are all “ordinary” in the sense that they were carried in one womb” (Gaddis, Vincent & Margaret, 1972 (pp. 35-36). Twins are formed in various ways.

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