Chances Against Triplets

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18551, 10 November 1934, Page 10

Chances Against Triplets

THE third set of triplets born in a London institution this year ar rived at the East End Maternity Hospital on August 29. They were three bonny boys, each weighing 41b., born to Mrs Nellie Anderson, wife of a market porter. According to medical statistics it Was a COOO to 1 chance against her having triplets, and an SO to .1 chancre against her having twins. ' Mr. and Mrs Anderson already have one son, aged six. Two other sons died. They have been married nine years..

A gynaecologist said to a pfessbrej pre.sentnt.ive:—. “The percentage' of I twins and triplets born is in all .probI ability the same, now as it always; has been. Neither nutrition nor the state t of a mother’s health has any bearing on their occurrence. ” The average number of triplets born in Great Britain every year is less than a dozen. 60 far this year seven cases have survived. In March Beatrice Hi ten ins, of Birmingham, gave birth to quadruplet boys. She came from a “twiu,bearing” family, and her husband’s had a similar record, j But it was 000,000 to 1 against her giving birth to quadruplets. On an 1 average there is one case in Britain every year. j The tendency to have twins or triplets increases with a woman’s age, j reaching its maximum at 35. At that | age a woman is four times more likely i to have twins than a mother aged 20. Last year in New Zealand there . were 251 eases of twin births, counting only cases where both children were born alive, according to the annual report on vital statistics for 1033. There were two eases of triplets. On the average, one mother in every 95 gave birth to twins or triplets. In 70 of the cases of twin births, both children were males, and in 73 both females. ' In both of the two cases of

triplets, two of the children were females.