There are more twins now in the world than ever before…that makes sense because there are more people in the world than ever before.
But there’s more to it: twins are more common than ever..their share of the population is growing.
The magazine, The Atlantic, did a study on this and discovered that from about 1915, when the government began to keep records on these births until 1980, one in every 50 babies born was a twin, or two in every hundred…..that’s two percent.
Then by 1995, it was two and a half percent, 2001, it was three percent, in 2010, three and third percent.
That’s a set of twins in every 60 births.
Or put another way, from 1980 through 2012, we’ve seen a million extra twins born, if the percentage from 1980 had never gone up.
What’s going on?
Scientists have several theories: older women tend to have more twins and women are starting families later in life.
Obesity is on the increase and heavier women produce multiple births.
And more women have been undergoing fertility treatments such as in-vitro fertilization…that process tends to produce twins and more.
By the way….every second, four babies are born around the world.
That means approximately 250 births each minute, 15,000 each hour and 360,000 each day.