The Case Of Vanishing Twin Syndrome

By Sharon Kelly


There have been many stories about mothers who have been shown to have twins in the first few weeks of their pregnancies only to find out a week later that only one heartbeat is there. When they then check, the doctors have concluded that there really is only one child and the twin disappeared. This is known as the vanishing twin syndrome and is a common condition among pregnant mothers.

As the name implies, it is a condition wherein one of two children born from the same womb would suddenly disappear while in the womb due to a miscarriage. When this happens, the child that is still there would absorb the fetal tissue and the placenta of the other one that vanished. Hence, it actually seems as if the other one suddenly did vanish into thin air, leaving only one child in the womb to be born.

As per majority of pregnancies, this would usually happen during the first pregnancy and can be spotted through an ultrasound and several follow up ultrasounds. The first ultrasound will confirm whether the mother has twins or not. Through follow up ultrasounds, the mother will then be able to know if both twins are still there or if one disappeared.

This type of phenomenon happens in about thirty percent of pregnancies with twins and would usually happen at the very early stages of pregnancies. Mothers may not even know that they had this condition because one of the children may just have vanished letting the other child absorb everything. In any case, mothers may have readings of a miscarriage but only be aware of having one child.

As for the cause of this condition, there really is no concrete conclusion as to what causes it. Research believes that there is a link to some abnormalities in the chromosomes of the miscarried baby. Other research suggests that there is a link to increased chances and the age of women since it happens mostly to happen above age thirty.

If this does happen sometime during the first trimester of pregnancy, then mothers do not need to worry about any complications since the babies are still very small. At most, she would experience some symptoms like bleeding, cramps and some pelvic pain which may prompt the doctor to give some light medication to treat these symptoms. As mentioned above, some mothers are not even aware of having this sort of condition until the ultrasound confirms it.

Now, things may be a little more complicated when this condition occurs sometime during the later trimesters of pregnancy such as the second or the third trimester. If this happens, the doctor would put the mother at a high risk pregnancy because the surviving baby may have some complications. One example would be cerebral palsy in the surviving child or other things.

While early detection of this kind of condition and an early occurrence may not be of any concern, late occurrence is. The key to this syndrome is to ensure awareness of what it is and how to deal with it. That said, it is highly recommended that women who are experiencing the symptoms such as pain in the pelvic area, bleeding, and uterine cramps go see her doctor right away.




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