A study on risk of twin pregnancy

Introduction: Twin pregnancy is associated with more pregnancy complications and poorer pregnancy outcome than singleton pregnancy. Aim: To evaluate the maternal and fetal complications in twin pregnancies. Materials and methods: 300 Twin Pregnancies were studied over a period of 16 months from 2006-07 to evaluate complications to the mother and both fetuses. Data obtained at the time of delivery included maternal age, parity, gestational age at the time of delivery, mode of delivery and fetal weights. Results: Among 25754 deliveries in 16 months we had 300 twin pregnancies, incidence being 1:85. Incidence of twins in percentage was 1.16%. Majority of women were in the age group of 20-25 years and majority of women gestational age 28- 32 weeks. Almost half of the twin pregnancies were unbooked cases. Out of the twin deliveries 50.3% were unbooked cases where as 49.6% were booked cases. Ratio of Primigravidae and multigravidae was 2.4:1 respectively. The most frequent maternal complication was pregnancy induced hypertension which occurred in 39.3% of cases. Other common complications encountered were premature rupture of membranes (10%) and anemia (6.3%). The commonest fetal complication was preterm labour accounting in 130 (43.3%) cases and with malpresentations in 87 (29%) cases followed by severe discordancy in 26 (12.4%). The highest perinatal mortality rate was 28/97 in low birth weight group i.e., 1-1.5 kg and high survival rate was seen in >2.5 kg body weight children. Conclusion: Twin pregnancies are significant risk factor for maternal and fetal complications include pregnancy induced hypertension and prematurity respectively.