When we are first introduced to the idea of twins, the thoughts on numbers do cross our minds. The questions that come up are how many? where?. In this section we have put in as many numbers as we could get across various geographies. We have still not come across any source which will give these numbers for Indian sub-continent. Appreciate your help in getting the same. But now we have come across some interesting stories about the Indian twins, which we will not says as Indian twins statistic but it definitely play some role in Indian twins stats.

 

India  (  India has one of the lowest twinning rates in the world)

Village of Twins? Yes, Mohammadpur Umri, a little village near Air Force base of Bamrauli, Allahabad of India is full of Twins. In a population of 600 there are thirty pairs of Twins. This is quite a high number considering that even two pairs would have made the village unique .Dr. Lalji Singh, Director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad accepts that genetically this village is a gold mine. A village elder Shafique Miyan recollects that the earliest pair of Twins born was some time after India’s partition in 1947. One of the twins died. Such tragedy has occurred in about 20pairs. Even then this village has the highest population of twins and can easily qualify for records. A couple of years ago a Central government team collected blood samples to understand the phenomenon behind this occurrence.

Dr Sribiju, a dermatologist and public health specialist who has been studying the high twinning rate for nine years, said the cause remained a mystery. In a telephone interview yesterday, he said: "We are working on a hypothesis that it is something in nature, or in the water or the sand. We do not think it is something in the food because they don't have something particular that they eat. There are thousands of heavy metals that could be in the water and affecting the people but it takes a long time to work out. It is very difficult." Read More....    

World Wide

The National Center for Health Statistics reported that the US birth rate for multiples rose 28% between 1990 to1998 to 29 births per 1000. The rate rose still more to 32 births per 1000 in 2004. The triplet rate are 125 million people in the world who are multiples (twins, triplets and higher-order multiples) and higher-order multiples rate more than doubled in 1999 for several reasons; 1) women waiting longer to have babies; 2) increased use of fertility drugs; and 3) in vitro fertilization. The birth rate for triplets or more declined slightly between 2001 and 2004.

 

·    USA

Multiple birth rates for 2006 were released in January 2009. Here are some highlights:  The 2006 twin birth rate was 32.2 per 1,000. This remained unchanged from 2005 and 2004. The number of live births in twin deliveries rose 3 percent between 2005 and 2006 to 137,085 births. This number has more than doubled since 1980 (from 68,339).

• 137,085 twins were born in 2006

• The twin birth rate in 2006 was 32.2 per 1,000 births

   

Africa

The twin record is paradoxically held by Africa, where the birth rate is very high (37/1,000 inhabitants against 10/1,000 in Europe). While Africa only holds 13% of the world population, 40% of twins are born there (20 twin births per 1,000 births compared to 12 in Europe). For the moment, there is no explanation for this phenomenon.

It's a curious, but little-known fact that the rate of twin births in West Africa is about four times higher than in the rest of the world. The centre of this twin zone is Igbo-Ora, a sleepy southwest town in Nigeria. (*Source BBC)

 

United Kingdom:

The number of twins being born in the UK continues to rise, with a total of 10,533 sets being born in 2005, the latest year for which statistics are available. Newly released statistics on Multiple Births in the UK for 2007 obtained from the Office of National Statistics, General Registry Office Scotland and GRO Northern Ireland.

	England & Wales (ONS London)	Scotland (GRO Scotland)	N. Ireland (NISRA)	UK Total
Total maternities	682,999	57,202	24,186	764,387
All multiples	10,471	893	362	11,726
Twins	10,334	882	357	11,573
Triplets	135	9	5	149
Quads	1	2	0	3
Quins	1	0	0	1
Sextuplets	0	0	0	0
Twinning rate /1000 mats	15.1	15.4	14.8	15.1
Triplet rate /1000 mat	0.20	0.16	0.21	0.19
Multiple birth rate /1000 mats	15.3	15.6	15.0	15.3

Figures include live and still births

Sources:Office for National Statistics, Birth Statistics FMI, GRO for Scotland: Vital Statistics Reference tables
Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. Registrar General, Annual Report.

In the UK about one in 34 babies is born a twin or triplet (in 1980 one in 52) NB. Twinning rates vary in different countries (see Causes below)The twinning rate fell from 13.0 per 1000 maternities in 1951 to 9.6 in 1980 and has since risen steadily to 14.72 in 2002. 2003 was the first year showing a decline (14.67).The twinning rate varies with the age of the mother. From 6.3 in under 20 years old, rising to 21.7 in 35-39 years, and 56.7 in the over 45s (compared to 6.3 in mothers over 45 years in 1980).

France:

In 1998, 14.7 births per 1,000 were of twins, against 8.9 per 1,000 in 1972. Fertility treatments have been responsible for two-thirds of the increased proportion of twins over the last thirty years, with the remaining third related to the increasingly advanced age at which women become pregnant.

Singapore:

All Ethnic groups showed increases in twins birth rate. Twins Births born to Indian Fathers showed the largest increase. The Indian rate of twins birth has increased from 6.9 per 1000 maternities during 1986-1989 to 9.9 per 1000 maternities during 1998-2001.

 

Source: Annals  of academy of Medicine Singapore 2003