Wednesday, April 27, 2016

3 common misconceptions about twins!

1. Fraternal twins are not identical in any way. People often say to parents of boy/girl twins..."are they identical?" No! The word identical means exactly alike. Even fraternal twins of the same sex are not identical. Some can look very similar, but they're not identical. I think I might need these onesies, ha ha!

2. Twins cannot run in a man's family on the male's side. Only women can carry the "twinning gene" (she releases more than one egg). Twins are not the result of two sperm fertilizing one egg. As soon as a sperm penetrates an egg, its tail detaches and the egg then physically changes instantly so other sperm are unable to get in. So, either the woman ovulates two eggs and each are fertilized by a different single sperm, and the result is fraternal twins. Yes, guys...you can congratulate yourselves for this one, along with the ladies. Or, one egg is fertilized by one sperm and the embryo splits as it grows, resulting in identical twins. This is completely random and has nothing to do with the sperm or egg. It is extreeeemely rare for two sperm to fertilze one egg, but the embryo dies off early on because it cannot continue to grow with 3 sets of DNA. A baby is the result of two sets of DNA...one set (23 chromosomes) from the father and one set from the mother.

3. Fraternal twins are no more alike than other siblings born at different times. They look different, can be different sexes, they develop at different rates, can have different eye, hair, and even skin colors if they have mixed race parents. Cool! They just happened to be "wombmates" is all...
Photocredits: Google images

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