Twins!

[emmagleb]

Twins are conceived at the same time, as both babies are the same pregnancy.

Hyperthetically, if the mother were to go into labour late one evening, and gave birth to the two babies either side of midnight, what would their birthday be?

Would they:
a - both be given the same date, in which case which of the two days?
b - be given birthdays on the two consecutive days?

The definition of identical twins is sharing a placenta, but can identical twins have different birthdays?!?!
Non-identical twins have a placenta each, but are 'covered' under the same conception.... so can they have separate birthdays?

Has anyone had experiance with this? What happened?

[devilwoman]

in theory, they would have separate birthdays, but in reality it wouldnt make much sense to have different birthday parties ect, but depends how parents and kids feel,
they still remain identical twins however.

[spudqueen]

I'm sure I read in the paper a few years ago about twins who were born either side of midnight, one on 31st December and the other on 1st January, so not only did they have different birthdays but they were born in different years!

[Suzyboo]

Your birthday is determined literally by the day of your birth so they would have separate birthdays since they were born on different days. Date of conception is irrelevant to anybody's birthday other than as a predictor of due date for a full term baby. I'm not sure why you think sharing a placenta would make a difference either. This has happened but isn't common. As devilwoman says, most families would still celebrate them together if planning a party etc. My brother and sister were born 10 and 13 minutes after midnight on the 1st of January so were in danger of being born in separate years too, as spudqueen says has happened, but fortunately my mum kept her legs crossed til after midnight ;)

[Roden]

Ill tell you....my sunties are twins born on different days and they dont share a birthday...they jut take the actual date they were born on..

[redcrx]

some twins can be born weeks apart. Non-identical twins have seperate placentas and it has been known for one to be premature and born long before a second.

Also non-identical twins from IVF can be born years apart. The eggs would be fertilised at the same time but if one embryo was implated into mother and the other frozen and implanted at a later date their birthdays could be years apart.

[darryl1666]

what about if one of them was born on the 4th of september and the other on the 5th (or whatever the start of the academic year might be). would one go to school a whole year earlier than the other?

[emmagleb]

Some very good points, thanks! I hadn't though of the different years (31st dec/1st jan) or academic years (4th/5th sept), both of which could cause problems!

I agree that a party would be celebrated together, and they'll be forever twins no matter what the dates. I wonder what a doctor would do for the birth certificate, or whether it'd be left up to the family to decide?

[Solarjunkie]

I heard of twins both wanting to join the army, but because they were born before & after midnight and had different birthdays they had to be in different intakes.
The doctor would - of course! - enter the births on the day they occured. The fact they are twins is irrelevant, if one is born on the Monday and one on the Tuesday that's how it is, whether the time difference is a couple of minutes or a couple of hours.
I have also heard of a midwife moving the bed between twin births for better light so the babies actually ended up being born in different counties!
The twind I know would have been delighted to have had a different birthday from their twin ,I'm sure, they get fed up with sharing everything.

[taichiperson]

I think I read recently of a woman who had complications which ended up with twins being born in different hospitals in different counties, more than a day apart!

[TydFan]

Just an aside - the educational year finishes on 31 August and starts on 1 September.

Some twins would love to have separate birthdays and all the attention to themselves like the rest of us.

Theoretically it could also happen not just between old and new years, but on the change of a century or even, just imagine it, a different millenium!

[Suzyboo]

They have separate birth certificates, each stating their personal birth date (be they the same or different) and the time too. What could be left up to the family to decide?

[kaylamay]

I'm sure statistically if they were born on either side of MN then those would be the dates on their birth certificates. I guess it would be up to the families if they celebrated them on the separate days or joined them for celebrations sake.

[dinosour]

An Irish woman had twins!! Her husband went looking for the other man.... Sorry wrong categery

[anitsirky]

Incidentally, non-identical twins are from separate eggs and can therefore can have diferent conception dates too. It has even been known for such twins to have diferent fathers!

[gallopingurc]

My boys were born 17 days apart, and yes they were born either side of the cutoff date for the school year. My wife is a twin, and clearly it was in everyone's best interests that the boys went to school together. Some pre-schools weren't prepared to consider the prospect. They didn't enter our consideration set!

Of course every school we sent the application forms to rang up and asked if we'd written the wrog dates on teh forms!

Read a bit about our story here:
http://jim007.googlepages.com/