Epidemiology and antenatal complications of twin gestation : an 8-year review

Abstract EN

Objective : To determine the incidence, epidemiology and antenatal complications of twin gestation.

Setting : Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, King Fahad University hospital, Al- Khobar, Saudi Arabia.

Subject and Design: Two-hundred and twenty-seven (227) patients with twin gestation that delivered over an 8 year period were studied.

The control group comprised of two singleton deliveries that followed immediately after the twins.

Patients were divided into three groups according to gestational age of the first, prenatal care and the total number of antenatal visits to the hospital.

Main outcome and result: The incidence of twin deliveries after 24 weeks gestation was ten per thousand.

The majority of cases occurred in patients aged 20-30 years of parity 4 and above.

There was a higher incidence of iron deficiency, anemia, pre-term labor, intrauterine growth retardation, pregnancy induced hypertension and intrauterine fetal death in the study group compared to the control.

Conclusion : Frequent prenatal visits, earlier diagnosis and management of several maternal complications would lower the incidence of perinatal morbidity and mortality.

Early determination of zygosity is useful in establishing the prognostic categories of twin gestation.

Further studies are needed to address the specific aspect of twin gestation in order to outline those areas for improvement of care in this challenging area of obstetrics.