Multiple pregnancies and premature birth

Expecting twins, triplets or more? You can look forward to double - or triple or more - the joy once your babies are born, but carrying more than one baby also brings certain risks.

More babies means a shorter pregnancy

When you're expecting twins, triplets or more, it's called a multiple pregnancy. Carrying more than one baby means you are more likely to have a premature delivery.

More than half of twin pregnancies, and almost all triplets, are born at or before 36 weeks. Half of all twins are born before 37 weeks and weigh less than 5.5lb (2.5kg).

Risks and complications

If you have a multiple pregnancy, you will be at higher risk of many of the potential complications that can cause premature birth or lead to induction, including:

pre-eclampsia
vaginal haemorrhage (severe vaginal bleeding)
gestational diabetes.

Premature delivery appears to be more common in pregnancies conceived through assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF) than in those conceived naturally and IVF increases the chance of multiple pregnancy.

In this section

Explaining premature birth:

Your premature baby:

You can also read about

Sources

NHS Choices (accessed Sept 2011) Livewell, Twins and multiples, http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/twins-and-multiples/Pages/pregnancy-risks.aspx

Levene MI (1991) Assisted reproduction and its implications for paediatrics, Archives of disease in childhood, Vol 66, p1-3

Comments

We welcome comments here. Please note though that our midwives do not check or read these comments. Before taking advice from others, you should email info@tommys.org or call 0800 0147 800 to talk to a trained midwife. Please keep your comments relevant, civil and respectful of others. To read more about our policy on comments, please click here.