Twins & Other Birth Multiples (Triplets, Etc.)

[nightseer]

My son now 14 was one of twins .(I lost the twin at about 3 mths ) he was born at29 weeks which is very early, any how one of the procedures that he had was a chest drain in his right side .
Fast foreward 10 years my daughter is born and on her left side is a scar (and it has been confirmed that it is a scar) that exactly matches my sons scar .
I didn't know if this counted as a twin story but it freaked my medical team big time.

 

[rynner2]

Fathers of non-identical twins have better sperm

Michael Day

Fathers of non-identical twins have better quality sperm than other men, according to a study by Danish fertility specialists. The observation suggests that twinning rates could provide a useful measure of male fertility in a given population.

Earlier research had revealed that men who took longer to father a child were less likely to have non-identical (dizygotic) twins. And some research had hinted that non-identical twins were less common in populations with low male fertility. But there was little or no research on semen quality in fathers of twins, until now

A team at the University Hospital of Copenhagen compared sperm quality in

37 men who had fathered non-identical twins with a control group of 349 men with normal, healthy sperm. On average, they found that fathers of twins had more normal and motile, or mobile, sperm than the control group. Their sperm counts were also higher, although not significantly.

"Our results support the idea that changes in semen quality may influence the non-identical twinning rates," says team leader Camilla Asklund. Indeed, the researchers conclude that the prevalence of non-identical twinning in a population could prove a useful measure of male fertility.

Genetic differences
However, Lynn Fraser, a sperm expert at Kings College London, UK, suggests that genetic differences between different populations may be at least as important in determining the prevalence of non-identical twins.

"We know that in the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria, for instance, the rate of dizygotic twinning is 5.2%, which is very high, and this must be down to genetic differences that mean the women there are more likely to shed two eggs at once," Fraser says. "And let's not forget, if the woman doesn't release two eggs, it's not possible to have dizygotic twins in the first place."

The Danish researchers concede that the chances of having non-identical twins is generally higher in older women, as the probability of releasing two eggs in one cycle rises with maternal age. Historically, about one birth in 80 gives rise to twins (1.3%). This rate has increased in some Western countries - particularly the US - in recent years due to the rise in IVF treatments.

However, if maternal factors are considered equal among fathers of twins and fathers of singletons, differences in the fertilisation of the two eggs released are probably related to semen quality, they say.

As part of the study, the researchers also tested the sperm quality of 15 men who had fathered identical (monozygotic) twins. Unexpectedly, they found that these men also had higher than average sperm quality. They were unable to explain this observation and say the finding might be an anomaly that occurred to due to the small sample size.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... ef=dn11218

 

[ramonmercado]

Semi-identical twins discovered

Twins normally share either half or all their genes
Scientists have revealed details of the world's only known case of "semi-identical" twins.
The journal Nature says the twins are identical on their mother's side, but share only half their genes on their father's side.

They are the result of two sperm cells fertilising a single egg, which then divided to form two embryos - and each sperm contributed genes to each child.

Each stage is unlikely, and scientists believe the twins are probably unique.

Whether these things are academic curiosities, or whether we've overlooked something significant is hard to say

David Bonthron, University of Leeds

These twins were born in the US, but neither their identity or their exact location is being revealed.

Their case is also reported in the journal Human Genetics.

Normally, twins either develop from the same egg which later splits to form identical twins - who share all their genetic material, or from two separate eggs which are fertilised by two separate sperm.

This creates non-identical (fraternal) twins - who share 50% of genetic material.

Sometimes, two sperm can fertilise a single egg, but this is only thought to happen in about 1% of human conceptions.

Most embryos created this way do not survive.

Hermaphrodite

These twins, who were conceived normally, only came to the attention of scientists because one was born with sexually ambiguous genitalia.

The child was discovered to be a hermaphrodite, and has both ovarian and testicular tissue, while the other child is anatomically male.

But genetic tests show both are "chimeras", and have some male cells - which have an X and Y chromosome, and female cells - which have two X chromosomes.

The most likely explanation for how they were formed is that two sperm cells - one with an X chromosome and one with a Y chromosome - fused with a single egg.

The twins are now toddlers, and doctors say they are progressing well.

Another case 'unlikely'

Vivienne Souter, a geneticist at the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona who investigated the case, said: "Their similarity is somewhere between identical and fraternal twins.

"It makes me wonder whether the current classification of twins is an oversimplification."

Charles Boklage, an expert on twinning who works at Eastern Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, said: "There's value in understanding that this can happen, but it's extremely unlikely that we'll ever see another case."

And David Bonthron, a geneticist at the University of Leeds, said: "The number of these cases is very small, but before they were reported, most people would have said this could never happen."

He added: "Whether these things are academic curiosities, or whether we've overlooked something significant is hard to say.

"A lot of what we know about fertilisation is deductive, because we can't observe these events in humans."




http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6498215.stm

 

[rynner2]

Males meddle with their twin sisters' love lives
20 June 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Rowan Hooper

FREEMARTINS are well known to cattle farmers - they are cows that grow up sterile, the result of sharing their mother's uterus with a male twin. Now a similar though less drastic effect has been found in humans. In what could be characterised as an example of women being suppressed by men before they are even born, girls with twin brothers have a lower chance of marrying and having children than do singletons.

Virpi Lummaa and colleagues from the University of Sheffield, UK, wanted a source of data on births, deaths and marriages from the pre-industrial era, in order to exclude the effects of modern healthcare and contraception. This they found in meticulously kept Finnish church records from 1734 to 1888. Of 754 twins, females who survived to adulthood were 25 per cent less likely to have children if their twin was a male. Of those who did have offspring, they had two fewer babies on average than women who had a twin sister. Women who had a male twin were also 15 per cent less likely to get married (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0605875104).

The effect must arise in utero, says Lummaa, because females born with a male twin that died at birth had similar reproductive success to twins who grew up together. All fetuses are exposed to oestrogen from the mother, but a female fetus sharing the womb with a male will be exposed to his testosterone. It was known that this can masculinise the female's facial features, cause increased growth in utero and lead to male-like behaviour after birth, but the new study is the first to find an effect on fecundity in humans.

Lummaa says that whereas these other effects have already been seen in modern populations, effects on reproduction are harder to pick up since families in western populations today tend to be much smaller than in the past.

http://tinyurl.com/34sxx7

 

[volfie]

This is spooky...my mum is a Gemini..my dad was a Gemini...mum had two sets of twins..then she was told to expect twins again but only me came

Maybe you consumed your own twin in utero...

BWWAAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!!!!!

 

[Anome]

Happens a lot, actually. Chimeras are more common than you'd think?

 

[rynner2]

Birthday twins – with a difference

BIRMINGHAM Marcia and Millie Biggs, are twin sisters, but one is black and the other is white. Born within minutes of each other, Millie has inherited the genes and dark skin of her 40-year-old Jamaican father, Michael, while Marcia has the paler complexion of their mother, Amanda.

Mrs Biggs, 39, from Erdington, Birmingham, said: “They looked alike when they were born. It was only when they were a few weeks old we started noticing differences.” The pair, who celebrated their first birthday yesterday, were conceived after IVF treatment and delivered by Caesarean section at Good Hope Hospital, Sutton Coldfield.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 028663.ece

 

[rynner2]

TWINS' CHANCE REUNION SPARKS ADOPTION ROW
11:00 - 14 July 2007

A chance meeting has reunited identical twin sisters separated at birth nearly 15 years ago - and touched off a legal dispute over how two doctors adopted one of the girls. Petita Penaherrera says she did not know she had twins until she and her daughter Andrea came face-to-face with Marielisa Romo four months ago in Milagros, Ecuador. The girls were identical.

Marielisa was accompanied by Roberto Romo and Isabel Garcia, the doctor couple who had delivered the twin babies - and then raised one.

Investigations began and, last month, Ms Penaherrera and her husband Augusto Freire sued the doctors, saying they never mentioned Andrea's twin.

"After seeing a girl in the restaurant who was exactly like mine I almost fainted," Mr Freire said.

Doctors Romo and Garcia told Ecuavisa television the biological mother knew about the twins but only wanted to keep one of them. "The nurse said, 'Congratulations, you have two girls'," Dr Garcia said. "The woman, like every adolescent who is not ready for motherhood, just cried and cried."

Ms Penaherrera insists she was never told. "The doctors stole my daughter," she said.

http://tinyurl.com/yvl6cj

An odd story, whatever the truth...

 

[rynner2]

Double-trouble: Tiger gives birth to twin cubs - one yellow and one white
Last updated at 17:49pm on 2nd August 2007

Cubs Jinliang and Yinshuai aren't any ordinary twins. Workers at Tianjin Zoo, China were shocked when the pair were born - because they arrived into the world in completely different colours - yellow and white.

The furry feline's mother Meimei was a mixed blood tiger - and it seems each of her offspring has unusually inherited each of her different colours.

The yellow cub has the hue of a common Bengali tiger - but the animal genetics would normally make the birth of his white brother virtually impossible. The twins were born on May 31st.

The Bengali tiger is the most common tiger subspecies and is the national animal of both Bangladesh and India.

http://tinyurl.com/2wbd75

Cute pics on page...

 

[svart]

Does anyone know of any interesting stories about triplets. I have googled and not found much.

The reason I ask is that my son & daughter-in-law are expecting triplets in March 08 but they could come as early as January. She's only 10 weeks at the moment so it's still early days yet and they may not all survive. We have seen the scans and there's definitely 3.

The conception was natural but the mother did need to have hormone therapy to stimulate the ovaries. And my son has proudly informed us that he has a higher than average sperm count

 

[rynner2]

School has 20 sets of twins on the roll
Last Updated: 3:42am BST 19/09/2007

Taking the register is a little more tricky, but one school is celebrating having 20 sets of twins on the roll.

The Grange School in Hartford, near Northwich, Cheshire, achieved that distinction when four new pairs enrolled this month.

That means that roughly one in 28 of those attending the 1,140-pupil school in Cheshire is a twin.

The Grange says it has so much experience teaching twins that it specialises in looking after them.

Ariel Leese-Jones, whose four-year-old girls, Athena and Bianca, have just started at the school, said her daughters felt more comfortable with other twins in the playground.

"They are in the same class and this seems to have worked really well," she said. "There's been no starting-school trauma as it's been a case of waking up with your best friend then going to school with her.

"Having said that, they are different personalities and they have also made different friends."

Stephen Bennett, the headmaster, said his staff always treated pupils as individuals and were not afraid to separate brothers and sisters if they felt they would benefit.

"Some twins, especially when starting school, seem to flourish better with the close support of their brother or sister. Others are keen to stop being one of a pair as soon as possible. Just because twins start off together, doesn't mean they remain that way.

"The golden rule, of course, is to treat them as the individuals they are. Forget they are twins, even if they look alike." But Mr Bennett admitted that teachers were sometimes baffled.

"Form teachers very rarely get the twins mixed up, but it certainly can happen.

"We have one pair of twins who are so alike that even their brother sometimes gets them mixed up."

Fees start at £6,060 a year at the school but there is a 10 per cent discount for siblings.

Nationally, there has been a steady increase in multiple births, attributed to fertility treatments such as IVF. At present, one in 34 babies born is a twin, compared with one in 52 in 1980.

http://tinyurl.com/23lvcp

 

[rynner2]

Identical twins reunited after 35 years
By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 1:10am BST 27/10/2007

Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein lived very similar lives. They were both born in New York, edited their high school newspapers and studied film at university. And both were adopted in 1968.

It was only at the age of 35 that they discovered each other and just how similar they were: identical twins who had been separated as infants in a bizarre social experiment.

It came to light when Elyse, who had been living in Paris, had decided to seek her birth mother. She was told that the mother was not interested in meeting her, but was then informed that she had an identical twin, Paula.

After not knowing her sister for three decades, with help from social workers she was able to find her within days.

The two women met for the first time three years ago at a café for lunch and talked until the late evening.

"We had 35 years to catch up on," said Paula. "How do you start asking somebody, 'What have you been up to since we shared a womb together?' Where do you start?"

On that first day Elyse did not reveal the secret she had discovered during her research. But soon afterwards she told Paula that they had been deliberately separated at birth and were the subjects of a unique study on nurture versus nature, a debate that has enthralled scientists for generations.

The real purpose of the experiment was hidden from their adoptive parents, who were vaguely told that the children were part of an ongoing study.

"They neglected to tell them the key element of the study, which is that it was about child development among twins raised in different homes," Paula told America's National Public Radio.

"It was like something out of a movie, I broke down in tears," she said, recalling when Elyse told her about the study.

"Nature intended for us to be raised together, so I think it was a crime we were separated," added Elyse.

Overcoming the turmoil in their emotions, the sisters, who both now live in Brooklyn and are both writers, decided to combine forces and write a book about their childhoods and the intense experience of discovering an identical twin in their mid-30s.

"Imagine a slightly different version of you walks across the room, looks you in the eye and says 'hello' in your voice..." they write in Identical Strangers, published this week in the US.

"Looking at this person, you are able to gaze into your own eyes and see yourself from the outside. This identical individual has the exact same DNA and is essentially your clone. We don't have to imagine."

They also tackled the scientist behind the experiment that changed their lives, Peter Neubauer, an internationally renowned child psychiatrist.

At first he refused to speak but he eventually agreed to meet them as long as their conversation wasn't recorded. They allege he showed no remorse and offered no apology.

The twins found that he was willingly aided by the Louise Wise adoption agency that handled both their adoptions.

Viola Bernard, a child psychologist and consultant to the agency, had firmly believed that twins should be raised separately to improve their psychological development, and that dressing and treating them the same retarded their minds.

Separating twins at birth was ended in the state of New York in 1980, a year after the study ended.

Aware that his research would be criticised, Mr Neubauer reportedly locked the study in an archive at Yale University, not to be opened until 2066. "It's kind of disturbing to think that all this material about us is in some filing cabinet somewhere," Paula said.

The sisters believe that in the great conundrum that justified their separation, nature is more important than nurture.

"Twins really do force us to question what is it that makes each of us who we are. Since meeting Elyse, it is undeniable that genetics play a huge role — probably more than 50 per cent," said Paula.

"It's not just our taste in music or books; it goes beyond that. In her, I see the same basic personality. And yet, eventually we had to realise that we're different people with different life histories."

Both veer between regret at the years lost and joy at discovering each other.

"That life never happened. And it is sad, that as close as we are now, there is no way we can ever compensate for those 35 years," Paula said.

Elyse added: "It is hard to see where we are going to go. It's really uncharted territory. But I really love Paula and I can't imagine my life without her."

http://tinyurl.com/2plvk6

 

[rynner2]

We're twinseparable! Happy with his brother, the boy who refused to die
By LUCY LAING
Last updated at 01:09am on 3rd November 2007

They say twins share a strong bond - but the one between Gabriel and Ieuan Jones was unbreakable.

When doctors found that Gabriel was weaker than his brother, with an enlarged heart,and believed he was going to die in the womb, his mother Rebecca Jones had to make a heartbreaking decision.

Doctors told her his death could cause his twin brother to die too before they were born, and that it would be better to end Gabriel's suffering sooner rather than later.

Mrs Jones decided to let doctors operate to terminate Gabriel's life.

Firstly they tried to sever his umbilical cord to cut off his blood supply, but the cord was too strong.

They then cut Mrs Jones's placenta in half so that when Gabriel died, it would not affect his twin brother.

But after the operation which was meant to end his life, tiny Gabriel had other ideas.

Although he weighed less than a pound, he put up such a fight for survival that doctors called him Rocky.

Astonishingly, he managed to carry on living in his mother's womb for another five weeks - until the babies were delivered by caesarean section.

Now he and Ieuan are back at home in Stoke - and are so close they are always holding each other's hand.

Mrs Jones, 35, a financial adviser whose husband Mark, 36, is a car salesman, said: "It really is a miracle. Doctors carried out an operation to let Gabriel die - yet he hung on.

"It was unbelievable."

"When I felt him kicking madly the morning after the operation, I suddenly knew that he was going to hang on.

"The doctors couldn't believe it when they could still hear his heartbeat the next morning."

Mrs Jones learned she was expecting twins when she was ten weeks pregnant. She said: "When they told us we were over the moon."

But at her 20-week scan, doctors had some devastating news. One of the boys was half the size of his brother.

They didn't know what was causing it, but somehow he wasn't getting enough nutrients.

Then doctors said his heart was three times normal size and it was likely he would have a heart attack or a stroke in the womb.

Mrs Jones said: "They told us that if he died, it could be life threatening for his brother.

"We had to decide whether to end his life and let his brother live, or risk them both."

They said it would be impossible to keep him alive afterwards as he was so poorly.

It would be kinder to let him die in the womb with his brother by his side than to die alone after being born.

"That made my mind up for me. I wanted the best thing for him."

At Birmingham Women's Hospital, when Mrs Jones was 25 weeks pregnant, doctors tried to sever Gabriel's umbilical cord to cut off his blood supply and allow him to die.

But the cord was too thick, and they could not cut through it.

As a last resort they divided Mrs Jones's placenta so that when Gabriel died, it would allow Ieuan to survive. Mrs Jones said: "I put my hands on my stomach thinking of Gabriel. It was devastating. I had said my goodbyes."

But the next morning Mrs Jones felt Gabriel kicking. A scan showed his heart was still beating. She said: "No one could quite believe it."

Gabriel hung on, and his enlarged heart started to reduce in size. He also gained weight.

Mrs Jones said: "They thought it may be because the placenta had been divided. Inadvertently, it had evened out the distribution of nutrition between them, allowing Gabriel to survive.'

When Mrs Jones reached 31 weeks doctors carried out a caesarian to deliver the twins. Ieuan weighed 3lb 8oz and Gabriel 1lb 15oz. Both were kept in hospital, but since going home they have thrived. At seven months, Ieuan weighs 15lb and Gabriel 12lb 6oz.

Mrs Jones said: "The boys are so healthy, they have huge appetites too. Ieuan is the noisy one, while Gabriel is always laughing, it's like he's just so happy to be here.

"There is such a strong bond between them.

"They are always holding hands and if one cries, the other reaches out to comfort him."

"Doctors tried to break their bond in the womb, but they just proved it couldn't be broken."

http://tinyurl.com/2e6mys

 

[StormMagic]

I think close siblings can have a similar bond to twins. My older sister and I were often treated like twins as children because we looked so similar.
As we got older we often would answer each other's questions before they were voiced aloud, would start singing the same song spontaneously and even choose the same clothes when we went out shopping separately.

Unfortunately we've lost this as we were less close during our teens.

 

[rynner2]

This is oneof the most bizarre 'twin' stories I've heard of:

Twin girl with eight limbs to have surgery
By Sam Relph and Peter Foster in New Delhi
Last Updated: 2:24am GMT 05/11/2007

An Indian girl born with four arms and four legs is to undergo a 40-hour operation tomorrow as doctors try to give her a chance at a normal life.

Lakshmi Tatma is a two-year-old girl named after the Hindu goddess of wealth who has four arms. She was believed to have been "sent from God" when she was born to a poor rural family in the Indian state of Bihar.

As news of her birth spread among the 500 inhabitants of Rampur Kodar Katti — a remote settlement without electricity or running water — men, women and children queued for a darshan, or blessing, from the baby.

However, it will require the latest techniques in medical science to separate Lakshmi from her "parasitical", headless, undeveloped "twin", which is joined to her body at the pelvis.

The £100,000 operation will require differently skilled teams of more than 30 surgeons to work in eight-hour shifts to separate Lakshmi's spinal column and kidney from that of her twin.

After attempting to transplant the shared kidney wholly into Lakshmi's body, another team of surgeons will gradually close up her pelvic girdle while re-orientating her bladder and genital systems. Plastic surgeons will then graft skin to cover her wounds while an "external fixator" will be attached to close her pelvis gradually over a three-week period.

The procedure has been described as "like shutting an open book".

Without the operation at the Narayana Health City, on the outskirts of Bangalore, Lakshmi's parents were told their daughter was unlikely to survive beyond early adolescence.

After more than two months of preparation, Dr Sharan Patil, the consultant orthopaedic surgeon leading the operation, said that her team was reasonably confident that the procedure would succeed in helping Lakshmi to survive.

"Fortunately, Lakshmi has one complete body with a near perfect set of internal organs," she said.

"Her skeletal system involves two bodies which are fused together at the level of the pelvis.

"The operation itself, although it presents several challenges, is not the most complex in the world. What is highly unusual in Lakshmi's case is precisely how her bodies are fused, almost mirroring each other."

An X-ray picture shows how the two
bodies are joined at the pelvis

Her mother, Poonam, and father, Shambu Tatma, who earn about 50p a day as casual labourers and are both in their twenties, were turned away by a government hospital when they asked for help to increase Lakshmi's chances of survival.

However, they were brought to Bangalore after Dr Patil visited their village.

"We tried to take Lakshmi to hospital but they turned us away and said nothing could be done," Mrs Tatma said yesterday. "We saved money and even went to Delhi but the hospitals there turned us away too. Lakshmi had never once seen a doctor until Dr Patil came to our village and took an interest in our case.

"I believe that Lakshmi is a miracle, a reincarnation, but she is my daughter and she cannot live a normal life like this."

http://tinyurl.com/35jmss

 

[rynner2]

More, from the beeb:

India surgery on many-limbed girl

Doctors in India are attempting rare surgery to give a chance of a normal life to a two-year-old child who was born with four arms and four legs.
Lakshmi Tatma is joined at the pelvis to what is, in effect, a headless, undeveloped twin.

A team of surgeons in the southern city of Bangalore will be working in shifts to separate Lakshmi's spinal column and kidney from that of her twin.

It is hoped the procedure will allow her to survive beyond adolescence.

"We have just about started the surgery, opened the abdomen so it's very early days yet," the doctor leading the operation, Sharan Patil, told the BBC's World Today programme.

'Appalling'

"We have prepared ourselves for 40 hours of continuous surgery, however if everything goes smoothly it will finish much quicker," she said.

Dr Patil said she heard about "this little girl in the state of Bihar that she needed particular help and I did reach out and went to this small village near the border with Nepal.

"It was appalling to find her with an infected sore and suffering from continuous fever without any medical help."

Dr Patil added that the girl's parents were eager for the operation to be performed.

"The villagers and some of the relations were not so keen about going ahead with the surgery but the parents are looking to the future and they were very, very keen and motivated to have medical intervention," she said.

The child has been hailed by some in her village in the northern state of Bihar as the reincarnation of the multi-limbed Hindu goddess of wealth, Lakshmi.

Conjoined twins are rare, occurring in about one in every 200,000 births.

They originate from a single fertilised egg, so they are always identical and of the same sex.

The overall survival rate of conjoined twins is somewhere between 5% and 25%.

Historical records over the past 500 years detail about 600 surviving sets of conjoined twins - more than 70% of which have been female twins.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7080326.stm

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Identical twins, separated as babies by their adoption agency, on the advice of Child psychologists conducting an experiment.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7152762.stm

Twins reunited, after 35 years apart

BBC News. By Jane Beresford. Radio 4's Taking a Stand 31 December 2007

To meet them today you would imagine that they had known each other all their lives.

They share an easy intimacy that belies the fact that identical twins Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein spent their first 35 years in total ignorance of the other's existence.

They were given up for adoption to separate families as part of an experiment in the US to discover how identical twins would react to being raised in different family backgrounds.

Neither set of adoptive parents knew the babies were part of a study or that they had been born twins.

The research project took place under the guidance of a leading US child psychologist with the co-operation of prestigious New York adoption agency Louise Wise Services.

It wasn't until Elyse Schein contacted the agency in 2003 to find out more details about her birth that the truth began to emerge.

"I received a letter that said: 'You were born on 9th October 1968 at 12.51 pm, the younger of twin girls.' It was unbelievable. Suddenly another element of my identity was revealed to me. Suddenly I was a twin."

...

"It was a relief I think for both of us that we were not carbon copies. As similar as we looked when we compared pictures of ourselves as kids, as adults we have our own distinct style."

"We both felt like asking: 'So what have you done with this body, with this DNA?'" says Elyse, "Or, 'So what have you been up to since we shared a womb?'"

"We had the same favourite book and the same favourite film, Wings of Desire," says Elyse. "It was amazing," says Paula. "We felt we were conducting our own informal study on nature versus nurture in a way".

Confrontation

Having lost 35 years of shared experiences, the twins wanted to confront Dr Peter Neubauer about what had happened to them - although they discovered they had been dropped quite early on from the twins study.

At first he refused to speak to them but eventually agreed to a meeting. "It was quite surreal," says Paula, who recalls her twin sister's feelings that "we were his kind of 'lab rats' coming back to see the great doctor".

"We had all these questions for him. But he was very quick to turn the tables and it was clear that he was seeing this as an opportunity to continue his study," she says. "He wanted to see how we turned out and question us about our development."

Neither Paula nor Elyse feel they have received answers to all the questions they have. And the records of the study are sealed until 2066.

"It was obviously about nature versus nurture," says Paula. "But there were other issues that we thought they might have been interested in, one of them being about the hereditariness of mental illness."

And from their researches, the twins have learnt that their birth mother did spend part of her life in psychiatric care.

Nor do the women feel that they got what they wanted from Dr Neubauer. "I really was hoping that he would take responsibility for what he had done so many years ago," says Elyse.

"He refuses to be open to the possibility that they were wrong," says Paula. "No matter what, we can't make up for the 35 years that we lost. We are different people because of being separated.

...

Elyse and Paula speak to Fergal Keane in Radio 4's Taking a Stand on 1 January 2008 at 0900GMT or afterwards at Radio 4's Listen again page.

Dr Peter Neubauer, Child Psychiatrist, New York, NY, today's scientist that most deserves to be hung up by his testicles.

More here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/27/wtwins127.xml
and here:
http://www.identicalstrangersbook.com/press-natlpost.html

 

[rynner2]

Identical twins, separated as babies by their adoption agency, on the advice of Child psychologists conducting an experiment.

Again, the beeb presents an ad for a programme as 'news' - I posted a version of this story here two months ago!

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Identical twins, separated as babies by their adoption agency, on the advice of Child psychologists conducting an experiment.

Again, the beeb presents an ad for a programme as 'news' - I posted a version of this story here two months ago!

Damn! Missed it, first time around.

 

[wembley8]

Having heard the program, I'm still not sure that the twins' complaint is.

They were separated (as some young adopted childred are), on the basis that it would be better for their development not to be in each other's shadow.

This doesn't sound like a bad idea - lots of twins seem to have issues with breaking free of each other , though luckily few as severe as the 'silent twins' -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_and_Jennifer_Gibbons - who ended up deciding that one of them had to die.

Maybe it's the inflammatory use of the word 'experiment'? But unless we know whether they are likely to fare better brought up separately or apart, how can adopters make this decision in future?

 

[rynner2]

Being traditional twins seems no bad thing, to judge by this story:
(I could have posted a version days ago, but I was dithering whether to put it here or in Growing Old...!)

MANY HAPPY RETURNS AS TWINS REACH 100
09:00 - 03 January 2008

Twin sisters celebrated their 100th birthday together with family and friends near Truro on New Year's Day. Betty Richards and her identical twin, Jenny Pelmore, were delivered on January 1, 1908, when there were very few motorised vehicles, by a doctor who arrived on horseback.

Now, as centenarians they still both drive their cars every day. :shock:

As young children living in Kent during the First World War, they say they could hear the sound of heavy battlefield guns in France.

Aircraft were something new. An aunt wrote to their mother: "Dear Sally, have you seen those terrible machines in the sky."

Betty, who lives at Penelewey, near Truro, and her sister meet up each morning at Jenny's Feock home overlooking the waters of the Carrick Roads.

They have been told they are the only identical twin centenarians, although another pair of unidentical twins reached that milestone last July.

Both are blessed with good health, still active and alert, and they told me a little of their lives when I visited them this week.

They were born, Betty being the first by 30 minutes, on New Year's Day, 1908, in Wythenshawe on the outskirts of Manchester.

Their family, called Jenkin - without an S as Betty emphasised - came originally from Crantock, near Newquay, where their grandparents are buried.

Their father, W H Jenkin, worked for the Ministry of Agriculture and was an expert on diseases affecting fruit trees and potatoes.

He was one of the first people to broadcast on gardening - "we all sat around with our crystal sets to listen to him," laughs Jenny.

They had two brothers and a younger sister, who have predeceased them but lived to great ages. Their older brother had the first car in the family.

"We used to fill the box at the back of the car and all go off to the seaside in Wales," Betty remembers fondly.

Jenny married a twin, Hugh Pelmore, whose family owned the Baker-Perkins engineering firm at Peterborough. "They have a Baker-Perkins oven in Truro's Tesco," she told me.

She had met him in 1941 when he was training to be a pilot and they married in 1947. She had been running a restaurant in Leamington Spa and Hugh used to fly over and wave the wings in salute.

She went on to work at a former girls school which was used to look after American pilots.

When they married they first lived at Elton Hall, near Peterborough, before moving to London when Hugh was given the job of setting up the export division of Baker-Perkins.

On retirement they moved to Cornwall, first to Polperro in the 1950s and then to Feock. Hugh Pelmore, whose twin brother founded the Bentley Drivers Club, used to race the marque at Brooklands.

Betty's husband, Brandon Richards, was called up on the day war was declared in 1939. He went to France with the 14th Ambulance and was on the last boat out on the evacuation of Dunkerque. He was transferred to Egypt with a medical unit and when he returned he was greeted by his daughter, aged three and a half years, whom he had never seen.

They had married in 1936 and he worked for the family firm, S G B Scaffolding. They had a son and daughter, now 69 and 65, two grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

They had lived in Staffordshire, but Brandon wanted to retire to somewhere warm and came to Penelewey, where he died in 1999.

As the Feock Afternoon Club says in a booklet put together to congratulate them, they have lived through five reigns, two world wars and have seen the introduction of talking motion pictures, frozen food, penicillin and the bra. :shock:

They are a wonderful pair and when I asked them the secret of their longevity they both agreed: "Optimism, and keeping moving and smiling."

http://tinyurl.com/232f58

 

[AsamiYamazaki]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7182817.stm

Parted-at-birth twins 'married'

It is thought the pair did not know their relationship when they married
A pair of twins who were adopted by separate families as babies got married without knowing they were brother and sister, a peer told the House of Lords.
A court annulled the British couple's union after they discovered their true relationship, Lord Alton said.

The peer - who was told of the case by a High Court judge involved - said the twins felt an "inevitable attraction".

He said the case showed how important it was for children to be able to find out about their biological parents.


Details of the of the identities of the twins involved have been kept secret, but Lord Alton said the pair did not realise they were related until after their marriage.

'Truth will out'

The former Liberal Democrat MP raised the couple's case during a House of Lords debate on the Human Fertility and Embryology Bill in December.

"They were never told that they were twins," he told the Lords.

"They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation."

He told the BBC News website that their story raises the wider issue of the importance of strengthening the rights of children to know the identities of their biological parents.

We are naturally drawn to people who are quite similar to ourselves

Pam Hodgkins
Adults Affected by Adoption

"If you start trying to conceal someone's identity, sooner or later the truth will out," he said.

"And if you don't know you are biologically related to someone, you may become attracted to them and tragedies like this may occur."

Pam Hodgkins, chief executive officer of the charity Adults Affected by Adoption (NORCAP) said there had been previous cases of separated siblings being attracted to each other.

"We have a resistance, a very strong incest taboo where we are aware that someone is a biological relative," she said.

"But when we are unaware of that relationship, we are naturally drawn to people who are quite similar to ourselves.

'Incredibly rare'

"And of course there is unlikely to be anyone more similar to any individual than their sibling."

Mo O'Reilly, director of child placement for the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, said the situation was traumatic for the people involved, but incredibly rare.

"Thirty or 40 years ago it would have been more likely that twins be separated and, brought up without knowledge of each other," she said.

Today, however, adopted children grow up with a greater knowledge of their birth families - and organisations try to place brothers and sisters together.

If that were not possible, the siblings would still have some form of contact with each other.

"This sad case illustrates why, over the last 20-30 years, the shift to openness in adoption was so important," Ms O'Reilly added.

How would you ever get over that?

 

[Anonymous]

I was just reading that on the Beeb. Makes you wonder how often this has happened without anyone realising.

 

[Quake42]

Makes you wonder how often this has happened without anyone realising.

Probably not very often TBH.

It's a shocking case, but I should think unlikely to occur going forwards as separating twins at birth would be unknown nowadays.

 

[PeniG]

Well, but Quake, you don't always marry someone your own age! My husband and I are 13 months apart; one set of married friends is separated by about five years, and another by more than 10. Non-twin siblings are separated all the time; and of course if you give up your child for adoption, then have another child that you keep, the half-sibling it Out There.

It's probably a lot more likely to happen in Britain than in America, because Britain is so tiny, and it's probably a longshot in Britain, too. I also have to wonder if it's really important, in most cases. Incest taboos have a genetic basis, yes - but it takes awhile for deletrious recessives to build up in a gene pool, and it's only a biological problem if it occurs a lot. The primary uses of incest taboos are cultural, as evidenced by the different ways in which kinship are defined and incest taboos operate from one culture to the next. From a psychological, emotional, and cultural point of view, it's probably better to hook up with a full sibling who was raised as a part of a different family than with a biologically unrelated person who was raised as your sib.

 

[spiritdoctor]

It just seems to be a legal thing. I don't see why they couldn't be married; the Egyptian Pharaohs for example had a long history of brother sister marriages. It doesn't cause unhealthy children in the way we are lead to believe.

Probably they are going to continue to live together and that is why their identities have not been given.

My guess would be that they married because, having shared a womb together, they recognized each other on some level. When they met and it felt like destiny and they'd always known each other.

I found it somewhat offensive and complete nonsense to be asked by the registrar if we were related when we filled out the marriage forms because it is obvious that me and my husband are of different races and neither of us mixed. But I suppose he was required to ask it for legal reasons and has to say it to a mixed race couple most days. But how ridiculous. Such a stupid law. I should have said - yes we're twins - just to be sarcastic.

 

[AsamiYamazaki]

I have two friends that long-term dated partners who shared the same date of birth as they did, and they always thought it was an extra 'sign' as to how well suited they were.

I guess factor in another thing in common, that of being adopted, and one can see how the twins felt a kinship - it doesn't have to be attributable to shared-womb experience at all.

 

[Quake42]

Non-twin siblings are separated all the time

Actually, they aren't any more, at least in the UK. Social services for all of their faults do their best to keep siblings together and even if this is not possible they try to ensure they have contact with each other.

It just seems to be a legal thing. I don't see why they couldn't be married; the Egyptian Pharaohs for example had a long history of brother sister marriages. It doesn't cause unhealthy children in the way we are lead to believe.

Most societies have a taboo against incest, the main reason being the health problems that can arise from inbreeding. In what way do you think that incest does not lead to genetic problems?

 

[Peripart]

I found it somewhat offensive and complete nonsense to be asked by the registrar if we were related when we filled out the marriage forms because it is obvious that me and my husband are of different races and neither of us mixed. But I suppose he was required to ask it for legal reasons and has to say it to a mixed race couple most days. But how ridiculous. Such a stupid law. I should have said - yes we're twins - just to be sarcastic.

I wouldn't do that, in case registrars have the same humour bypass as Customs officials. I was passing through an airport with my mate once, who, when asked "Anything to declare?", answered "No, apart from the bomb in my case". Very slowly and quietly, the officer said, "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, and ask you again if you have anything to declare." Fortunately, my friend got away unprobed, but I had the feeling it was a close thing.

So I guess you're right. It's one of those things the registrars have to ask everyone, since it stops them having to try and guess who looks related. In your case, it was clearly a superfluous question, but I feel you were wise not to rise to the bait - you could have been faced with having to rearrange your wedding if you'd caught the registrar on a bad day!

 

[spiritdoctor]

Peripart - so true. And anyway he has probably heard every joke before and is tired of them.

In terms of customs men, when we were evacuated to Miami after our locality was hit by a hurricane in 2004 the customs guy wanted to know "and what is the purpose of your visit to the US?" My husband was like; there's no water, there's no electricity, the roads are flooded, its taken us 3 days to get off....
A bit off topic though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ivan
http://www.davidwolfephotography.com/Stk/Ivan/index.htm