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The Sunday Times | Sunday, August 2, 2015
Surge
in twin
births
over past
decade
Madam Ermita Soenarto and her husband, Mr Loo
Ming Da, with their 10-month-old triplets (from left)
Lucia, Liora and Lysbeth, and three-year-old daughter Livia. ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM
Hitting ‘jackpot’ with triplets
Rise of 50% attributed to increase
in use of assisted reproduction
Theresa Tan
If you sometimes imagine you’re
seeing double, you probably are.
The number of women giving birth
to twins here has increased by almost 50 per cent in the past decade.
Last year, 573 mothers had twins,
according to official data released
by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority last month. That
was up from 385 in 2004.
Doctors attributed the surge to increased use of Assisted Reproduction Technology (ART) treatments
such as in-vitro fertilisation (IVF).
Professor Christopher Chen,
medical director of the Gleneagles
Assisted Reproduction Programme
Centre, said: “As women establish
their careers first, they marry later
and their chances of conceiving naturally fall as they age, so they turn
to IVF and other treatments.”
Past data here had shown that 24
per cent of those who conceived
with ART help had twins, compared with 0.8 per cent of those
who conceived naturally, he said.
IVF entails combining a woman’s
eggs with her husband’s sperm in a
laboratory, before transferring the
embryos into the woman’s womb.
Last year, 6,191 assisted reproduction cycles were done in Singapore
– almost double the 3,335 cycles in
2008, the Health Ministry told The
Sunday Times.
Dr Lim Min Yu of the National
University Hospital Women’s Centre said the chances of conceiving
twins naturally rise as women age
because older women have higher
levels of follicle stimulating hormone, which may stimulate more
than one egg to be released during
ovulation.
Madam Sakina Omar, 34, was
childless after seven years of marriage. She conceived twins on her
first try with IVF and quit her
Mrs Regine Sahetapy and her husband Carl with their twin daughters Gabrielle (left) and Noelle, who were conceived
naturally and were born in September last year. ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO
events organiser job to be a stayat-home mum. Her twins, a boy and
a girl, were born last October.
“I was so happy to be pregnant,”
she said. “I always wanted to have
twins and it’s a dream come true.”
To cope with looking after two babies, she has drawn on the support
of a group of mothers with twins.
Mrs Regine Sahetapy, 34, and her
friends recently started a Facebook
group called Sg parents of twins
Grow Your Stock
Call 1800 289 8822 or e-mail
[email protected] to place your
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and triplets to advise and offer support to other mothers.
The former management consultant conceived naturally and gave
birth to twin girls last September.
She said: “We want to tell other
mums they are not alone.”
Last year – which was the Year of
the Horse in the Chinese zodiac –
also saw 6.3 per cent more babies
born than the year before.
There were 42,232 new babies –
the second-highest number in the
past decade after the bumper
42,663 babies in 2012, which was
the Dragon year, considered the
most auspicious by the Chinese.
Prof Chen said many parents consider the Horse year just as auspicious. “The parents tell us they
want a Horse baby as horses symbolise vigour and success,” he said.
Madam Ermita Soenarto’s friends often tease
her that she struck the jackpot.
After all, it is extremely rare – an estimated
one in 6,400 pregnancies – to conceive triplets
naturally. Recalling her reaction when she
learnt she was expecting triplets, the
33-year-old doctoral student said: “I was horrified. Twins seem manageable, but not triplets.”
She also feared her babies would not be healthy
as such pregnancies are often fraught with difficulties.
Meanwhile, her husband, engineer Loo Ming
Da, 31, fretted about their finances as he is the
family’s sole breadwinner and they have a
daughter, three-year-old Livia.
Madam Ermita gave birth last September to
Lysbeth, Liora and Lucia. They were one of
eight sets of triplets born last year.
The number of triplets born has halved since
the Health Ministry imposed a rule that a maximum of two embryos at a time – instead of three
– can be implanted in a woman’s womb through
in-vitro fertilisation. This is because implanting
more embryos raises the chances of a woman
having a multiple pregnancy, which poses greater risks.
There are some exceptions to the rule, such as
for women aged 37 and older, who have gone
through at least one assisted reproduction cycle
but failed to conceive, to boost their chances of
having a baby.
Before the rule was introduced in 2011, an average of 20 sets of triplets were born a year between 2000 and 2010.
Dr Chee Jing Jye of the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Centre, a private clinic, explained that
the chances of having triplets are greatly reduced if only two embryos are placed in a
woman’s womb.
She may still have triplets if one embryo splits
into a pair of identical twins, while the other develops as a single baby.
Dr Lim Min Yu of the National University Hospital Women’s Centre said women with multiple pregnancies were three to seven times more
at risk of developing problems such as hypertension and gestational diabetes. There are also
greater risks of miscarriage, premature delivery
and still birth. Besides triplets, there were three
sets of quadruplets (four babies) and one set of
quintuplets (five babies) born in the past decade, official records show. The largest number
of babies born from a single pregnancy was in
1998, when a woman gave birth to six children.
Madam Ermita, who has no maid or help from
her parents, said the first few months after the
triplets arrived were the hardest, even though
her husband was a huge help. “It’s physically
very demanding to care for triplets. You have to
do everything three times,” she said. “But it’s
easier now that the girls are 10 months old.”
Theresa Tan
[email protected]