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Conjoined twins are identical twins who are joined together somewhere in the body, most often at the chest, abdomen or pelvis. They are monozygotic twins, in the sense that they share the same zygote.

The formation of this twin type is believed to be the result of late twinning. When the twinning occurs more than 12-13 days after fertilization of the egg, it may lead to the formation of conjoined twins because the embryo may not split completely.

Conjoined twin births are very rare, amounting to around one birth in every 100,000 births. The ratio of female and male sets was found to be three to one.  There is a slightly higher chance of conjoined twins from Africa and Southwest Asia.

Depending on where they are joined, some may share some vital internal organs.

Author: Naomi’s Dad, Rick

I know Naomi likes to commiserate with you all, and tell you what a heavy cross raising twins is to bear; that’s because she’s an Internet Mum, not a Traditional Mum. 

Phrases like “age appropriate behaviour” (really an excuse for letting them get away with murder) roll off her lips like gentle waves on a tropical beach, calming, even ‘mindful’ but not achieving much.  And yet, for many years I was her Mum and Dad, raising her in my  own ‘age appropriate’ way, and look at her now, she’s perfect, the best daughter in the Southern Hemisphere!

All without an online forum from which to seek understanding and enlightenment. Nor did I even once stress about her having too much screen time.

Author: Naomi Dorland

September is Desmoid Tumour Awareness Month. 

What is a Desmoid Tumour I hear you ask?  I didn’t know either, until I was diagnosed with one. And I certainly never expected to be diagnosed with a Desmoid Tumour after twin pregnancy.

A lump under my c-section scar

When our twins were about 17 months old, I was laying in bed and I realised that there was a solid “bump” at one end of my c-section scar.  I’m not talking about an infected hair follicle sized bump, I’m talking about something that was firm, and felt like it was about the diameter of a golf ball.  

I was lucky in that my stomach went all the way down, back to pre-baby size, very quickly.  Also, I am of fairly slim build. When I lay on my back, my hip bones protrude.  So this lump was easy to feel when I was laying down.  When I stood up though, you could barely feel it.  I was busy with our 17mth old twins, so I didn’t really worry.  I’ve had at least a dozen lots of surgery for endometriosis, and I am extremely prone to adhesions.   So I just assumed it was endometriosis adhesions or scar tissue adhesions.  I decided to ignore it, as I didn’t have time to have more surgery to remove it, and it wasn’t life threatening.   Or so I thought!

Relationship after twins or triplets

When you are the parent of a small baby, you learn pretty quickly that you have less time for your partner than you did before. In general, you have less time for everything. When you are parenting twins or multiple babies there seems to be even less.

Multiples are incredibly special and a blessing, no doubt, but with great blessings comes great responsibility (I stole that line from Spiderman).

The effort that goes into caring for one newborn is huge, and vastly different to anything either parent has experienced before. Then you double that with twins, and in the first twelve months of their young lives, the time commitment and work burden on the parents is simply overwhelming. It takes up virtually all of their waking hours (which are about 20 hours a day when you have newborn twins!). 

Your relationship after twins or triplets

Some of the main reasons why parenting twins or triplets puts a strain on your relationship: