I’m watching Discovery Health right now and it’s a show about a woman pregnant with 6 babies (2 sets of identicals).
Now, in a normal person having, say 3 babies, all the same sex, all fairly similar in size, how do they keep track of which is which? I know they can see them on the ultrasound. Do the babies stay in pretty much the same place throughout the whole 9 months?
I always assumed they moved around but now it seems to me that they must stay fairly stationary.
Identical twins share a placenta, while fraternal twins each have their own, so I’d guess that you can keep track of the identicals vs. the rest that way. Beyond that, no idea.
Why would they need to keep track, really? Unless one fetus has a problem (which they’d presumably know about because it was visible on ultrasound, rendering the question moot), what does it really matter which one is which in utero?
The reason I started wondering was because the people in this show had all the kids labeled as baby A-F. They even assigned names to each baby. I wondered what the point to that was if you couldn’t guarantee the babies were the same each time.
Mostly, but it depends on when the identicals split, if early enough, the can have their own. We have low order multiples (twins), and our naming convention was “First out = Liam, Second out = James.” Could not keep track visit to visit.
I’m thinking with 6, it might be easier because there isn’t as much room for them to move around. Each pair is anchored to one side, so the babies on the right won’t mysteriously become the babies on the left, or on the top… but that’s all theory. Can’t say I have any actual experience with multiple births.
If they are fraternal one sac will usually be lower than the other, or there is a left/right split. If identical, there may be a left/right split.
Baby A is usually the one likely to be born first- i.e. the lowest.
With 6 (!) I’d guess there is a bottom tier and a top tier and a left /right /centre split.
Very early you can clearly see which is which, later on as they are more active it gets harder to trace the umbilicus back to the placenta. Towards the end they get pretty stuck in position and it is unlikley that a baby that is well down in the pelvis will suddenly swap placces with its twin who was on top.
All you really want to check is that each baby is developmentally normal and growing appropriately, with healthy blood flow in the umbilical vessels and placenta. Obviously if you have one obviously big baby and one little one it is easier to work out which is which- as long as you are sure you have checked each baby and not missed one you should be able to keep track of any problems.
It also used to be important to work out whether twin A was breech and twin B was cephalic (head down), because this could lead to the potentially disatrous situation of the two heads becoming entangled during labour. As almost all multiples are delivered by c-section now the positioning of the babies has become less important- although still vital if mum is planning to deliver twins normally.
Cephalic/cephalic, breech/breech, and cephalic/breech are all do-able- but breech/cephalic presentation is an indication for c-section in and of itself because of the possible head entanglement. In fact, back in the day when vaginal delivery of twins was commonplace it was pretty common for the midwife or doctor to reach in and pull the second twin out feet first if it was taking too long to come out!
In a C-section delivery the first baby out is the one closest to the incision or which is the easiest to grab- I’m afraid it isn’t more scientific than that!