It¡¯s Raining Twins and Triplets in UK

LONDON: It is raining twins in the United Kingdom with multiple births becoming common. In 2011, 11,330 women gave birth to twins, 172 to triplets and 3 to quads and above. in England and Wales. Interestingly, it is the women aged 45 and above who had the highest number of multiple births.

Latest data on births in UK, released by the Office of National Statistics on Thursday showed that the greatest increase in multiple births was among women aged 45 and over where the multiple maternity rate rose from 9.8 in 1976 to 99.3 in 2011, peaking at 105.8 in 2009. "Women aged 45 and over had by far the highest multiple maternity rate in 2011 (99.3 per 1,000 maternities)," the data said.

Of every 1,000 women who gave birth in 2011, 16.1 women had more than one baby ¡ª up from 15.7 in 2010, the ONS said.

In 1976 the rate stood at 9.6 women out of every 1,000. Since 2001, the multiple maternity rate (then 14.8) has increased by 8.8%. Overall the multiple maternity rate has increased since the late 1970s.

The largest increase in the multiple maternity rate was recorded between 1990 and 1995 when the rate rose from 11.6 to 14.1, an increase of 22%. In 1976, women aged 35-39 had the highest multiple maternity rate (13.4 per 1,000 maternities). Since 1976 it has increased for all ages but most notably for women aged 30 and over.

Women aged under 20 had the lowest multiple maternity rate in 2011 (6.5 per 1,000 maternities) while the multiple maternity rate for women aged 25-29 has shown the smallest percentage increase since 2001 (2.3% increase). There was a 1.6 % decrease in the multiple maternity rate over the decade for the women aged 30-34.

TNN