A Massachusetts middle school recently held its eighth-grade “moving up” ceremony for its outgoing students, which included a remarkable 23 sets of twins. Pollard Middle School in Needham, Massachusetts, has a large student body, with roughly 450 to 500 children in each grade. Principal Tamantha Bibbo noted that having 23 sets of twins in one class was quite unusual, as they typically only have five to 10 sets. The twins made up about 10% of the eighth-grade class and were recognized during the ceremony on June 12th.
Twins represent about 3% of live births in the United States, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Identical twins make up about one third of all twins, while fraternal twins make up the other two-thirds. Fraternal twins can be linked to genetic factors, while the occurrence of identical twins is equal for every pregnancy. The number of twin births in the U.S. has been increasing steadily for three decades before beginning a gradual decline in 2019, according to the CDC’s website.
In 2022, there were 114,483 twin births in the United States, as reported by the CDC. Additionally, there were 2,774 sets of triplets born that year, as well as 121 “quadruplet and other higher order births.” The reasons behind the increase in multiple births are not entirely clear, but factors such as maternal age and the use of fertility treatments could play a role. The world record for the most children delivered at a single birth to survive currently belongs to a woman from Mali who gave birth to nine babies – nontuplets – on May 4, 2021, in Morocco.
The nontuplets were delivered via cesarean section at 30 weeks gestation, with each baby weighing between 1.1 and 2.2 pounds at birth. All nine babies survived and the family returned to Mali after more than a year-and-a-half since their births. The previous record holder for most children delivered at a single birth was “octomom” Natalie Suleman, who delivered octuplets in 2009. The occurrence of twins and other multiple births can be influenced by various factors, including genetic predisposition and the presence of fertility treatments.
The chances of having twins can vary depending on various factors, and twins are by far the most common multiple birth. Pollard Middle School’s eighth-grade class stood out with its unusually high number of twins, which was more than three times the expected rate of twin births in the U.S. It was not specified in the article how many of the twins at the school were identical or fraternal. The celebration of the twins during the moving up ceremony brought attention to the unique situation at the school and highlighted the diversity within the student body.
