Study: Healthy Women More Likely to Have Twins

Wednesday, 11 May 2011 | by Pat's Picks

A new study has found that mothers of twins tend to live longer than other mothers says the LA Times. But researchers believe it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation: because women who have twins tend to be healthier from the get-go, they are more likely to have a pair. In other words, being healthy could increase a woman’s chances of having twins. To come to their conclusions researchers used historical data from the 1800s—before the time when fertility treatments were available. They found that twin-bearing mothers lived, on average, longer after menopause; they also had long reproductive periods.

Read an abstract of the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B