Thursday, May 16, 2019

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.

Just to give an idea, this is a type of incident wherein one of the children inside the womb would suddenly disappear leaving only one twin to stay there. Now, this would usually happen because of a miscarriage wherein the surviving child would take the placenta and fetal tissue of the one that is gone. In a way, it may actually seem like one child really did disappear from the womb.

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.

Just to give more idea about this condition, it usually happens in approximately twenty eight percent of pregnant women. As mentioned already, it happens usually during the first trimester of the pregnancy. Because of that, there are actually some mothers who are not aware of it until checked by ultrasound.

Unfortunately, the cause for this sort of incident is still unknown or cannot be concluded. There have been a few studies that have linked this condition with abnormalities found in the chromosomes of the vanished twin. Other than that, there have been no conclusive evidence that would state the true cause or causes of this condition.

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.

Now, early detection and preparation would be the key in avoiding such complications like the ones mentioned above. Awareness about the complications, the symptoms, and other things is extremely important. That is why it is recommended that mothers who are already having some symptoms that were mentioned above should go visit a doctor as soon as possible.




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