A Big Boost in Multiple Births

New statistics give legs to a phenomenon seen in American homes and schools everywhere nowadays--twins, triplets and other multiple-birth children are being born at a rapid and unprecedented pace.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, twin births rose 52% (from 68,339 to 104,137) from 1980 to 1997, the most recent year studied. Triplet-or-higher multiple births climbed 404% (from 1,337 to 6,737). Single births rose 6% during the same period.

One startling measure shows the rate of triplet and higher-order multiple births soaring more than 1,000% among women in their 40s and nearly 400% among those in their 30s.

(The center report suggests reasons for the rise: Older women are more likely to have a multiple birth, and fertility-enhancing therapies are more widely available.)

Here’s one more fact:

More twins were born to women 45 to 49 years old in 1997 than during the entire decade of the 1980s.

Source: National Center for Health Statistics