Slow twin conception at first birth and subsequent maternal twins proneness in a natural fertility population

Abstract

To study whether apparently more fecund women having delivered twins at first birth have traits of higher twin-proneness, we performed a retrospective cohort study on population-based historical vital records of the 17-18th century French Canadian immigrants and their descendants under natural fertility conditions. Among 24896 mothers who had at least one child, 248 had twin maternities at their first birth (twinning rate = 1.0%). Among 21508 mothers with a valid marriage-first birth interval, twinning rate was 0.97% among prompt conceptions (7.0-11.0 months), with a particularly high rate at the interval of 7.0-8.0 months (2.2%). Marriages in August-October resulted in a higher twinning rate particularly for the slow conceptions than those in the other seasons. Promptly-conceived mothers of twins at the first delivery may seem to have higher fecundity, but subsequent births from these mothers (n = 88) show a lower twinning rate (1.7%) particularly at younger maternal age than from the other mothers who had slowly conceived twins at their first birth (n = 112). The latter show a 4.5% twinning rate as a whole among their second or later births. So-called twin-proneness of a mother, whether genetic or acquired, was not connected to higher conception rate of twin's mothers immediately after marriage. Reduced fecundity, which may have been imposed by some environmental factors, could raise the chance of twinning.