Anyone 33 or over when twins are/were born?

So I got a call back from the perinatology department today to set up an appointment with them. They informed me that they consider twin pregnancies, when the mom is 33 or older, the same as singleton pregnancies where the mom is 35 or older, in that there is a higher risk for chromosone abnormalities. I thought this was weird, but ok. (I am 33, and will be 33 when the babies are due) So they are recommending an amniocentesis. I have declined it, until I get my level II ultrasound on September 4, and I will make a decision then. I'm not scared of getting an amnio, I've had one done before, I've just never heard of this. Anyone else have any experience with this. All of a sudden today I feel very old.

 

I delivered my twins at age 33. I was never refered to a peri and I was never told that they were any more "at risk" than someone younger. That seems wierd to me.

 

I'm 33 and will be when I deliver. My DR never said anything like this to me nor did I ever read this in any twin book.

 

I am 33 and my twins were just born. I never heard this. I was asked about an amino and I declined to have it done. We figured that we would be having our children if they had problems or not, so why bother with any extra risks. Good luck.

 

I was 34 when my babies were born and I refused all tests as well, My husband and I felt that we would take whatever we got and the doctors said they wouldn't do much anyway if there was a problem, and besides it is very common to get false readings and why stress for eight or nine months over something? I decided to just enjoy the pregnancy and take care of my body for my babies. They came at 33 weeks and had spent a little time in the NICU before coming home, overall they are normal and growing like crazy they are going to be 5 months this week. Enjoy! Shannon
QUOTE(twinmuffin @ Aug 2 2007, 04:25 PM) [snapback]354967[/snapback]
So I got a call back from the perinatology department today to set up an appointment with them. They informed me that they consider twin pregnancies, when the mom is 33 or older, the same as singleton pregnancies where the mom is 35 or older, in that there is a higher risk for chromosone abnormalities. I thought this was weird, but ok. (I am 33, and will be 33 when the babies are due) So they are recommending an amniocentesis. I have declined it, until I get my level II ultrasound on September 4, and I will make a decision then. I'm not scared of getting an amnio, I've had one done before, I've just never heard of this. Anyone else have any experience with this. All of a sudden today I feel very old.

 

I am 33 and will be when the twins come along. I only see a peri, that is simply because I had to see one with my son, as I was diagnosed with GD and also incompetent cervix and had to have a cerclage placed while carrying him. The OB referred me to the peri.

This time as soon as I discovered I was pregnant I called a peri as got a good reference from someone. Didn't know I was pregnant with twins at the time, I simply didn't have an OB/GYN in this area as I was new. My peri will deliver and I never have to see an OB.

The peri asked us if we wanted to do any testing and we said no, we didn't have any of the testing with any of the pregnancies and he was perfectly fine with that. He put a cerclage in between 13-14 weeks since with my son I had it done when I was already 1cm dilated at 22 weeks. He has been checking it and will do another check in 4 weeks and that will be it, I will be 28 weeks at that point.

If you don't want the amnio don't get it, only do testing if you want to.

 

I was 37 when my twins were born. I was already high risk being over 35. However, I have never heard anything about 33 + being high risk. If you're old then I'm ancient.

 

I was 2 months shy of my 33rd b-day when the twins were born (and they were born 6 weeks early). My peri always treated me as a 32 y.o. - he always said i was young enough not to have to worry as much about chromosomal abnormalities as women over 35. that I was having twins made no difference in that regard.

 

I was 33 when the boys were born (two months shy of 34) and was not referred to a peri or told anything remotely similar to what you were told. It doesn't make logical sense. You're not older because you conceived two :huh: although you may FEEL older by week 33 :lol:

 

im 34 and ive refused all testing..Im not taking any chances and I will deal with any problems when the babies get here..Not to mention they can catch most things on u/s now anyways.

I think your smart to wait till your u/s I mean why put your babies at an added risk of amnio, if there's no real reason..

 

I was 33 and my doc said indeed that I have the same chance on abnormalities as a 35/36 year old because I was carrying twins. However, I did already have a healthy child before. I did do non-invasive testing and my chances for Down came back 1:7200 (wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy lower than my age) and no increased risk for T18 and neuro defects. U/s also looked normal, so we decided to take this small risk and everything turned out fine.

 

OK, so I win the ancient thus far award. I was 38 when my twins were born. I just got the over 35 being high risk story. We had an amnio because some of the other tests came back suspect, and we wanted to be prepared with the right doctors there for delivery just in case. But you need to do what is right for you.

 

QUOTE(twinmuffin @ Aug 2 2007, 04:25 PM) [snapback]354967[/snapback]
So I got a call back from the perinatology department today to set up an appointment with them. They informed me that they consider twin pregnancies, when the mom is 33 or older, the same as singleton pregnancies where the mom is 35 or older, in that there is a higher risk for chromosone abnormalities. I thought this was weird, but ok. (I am 33, and will be 33 when the babies are due) So they are recommending an amniocentesis. I have declined it, until I get my level II ultrasound on September 4, and I will make a decision then. I'm not scared of getting an amnio, I've had one done before, I've just never heard of this. Anyone else have any experience with this. All of a sudden today I feel very old.



I was 31 when my twins were born, but just wanted to say that I have never heard anything like that. That is crazy that they consider 33 (for twins) the same as 35 for a singleton, high risk. To me this just makes no sense.

With both of my pregnancies I declined all tests like that.

 

I am currently 34 and will turn 35 in September; my twins are due in November/December. I see a peri and an OB and I had the quad screen and an anatomy scan (ultrasound), but there has never been any mention to me about an amnio.

 

I was told the same thing by my Perinatology group. I was 32 when I got pregnant with the boys and turned 33 about 8 weeks into my pregnancy. So I was set up to have genetic counselling before the level 2 ultrasound. There are no birth defects in our family but we were talked to about the amnio. I made the statement back to my counselor that the only reason we are here for this appointment today is because I am 2 months into my 33rd year and if this was last year I would not have been set up to see a counselor. She said you are correct! So we declined the amnio unless there was something suspicious revealed during the ultrasound and we declined all other tests. We had no basis for them and there are more false positives because the quad screen is set up for singleton babies. We had the counselor call the lab about the efficacy of the tests and I think I remember the Downs one only being correct like 75% of the time for twins and that was the best out of the 4. So needless to say we did not want to worry over a false positive. All of our ultrasounds were right on track.

Rachel

 

I am 33 will be 34 2 days after I am induced. I had the nuchal fold and blood testing but refused amnio because we wouldn't have aborted anyway. The doctors actually said I was at low risk anyway BECAUSE of my age and the blood levels showed a ridiculously low chance of abnormalities. First time I heard of that. I have heard though of the tests falsely showing a higher chance that something is wrong because it is twins and there is extra of whatever they are testing for if that makes sense. Pregnant brain can't remember any technical terms tonight. Plus I did have a healthy child (10 yrs ago) and nothing runs in our family as far as we know and I guess that lowers the risk too.

 

I turned 33 two days after my girls were born. I only had the level II u/s and the blood tests done.
Amniocentesis carries a small risk of miscarriage - a risk we were not going to take under any circumstances because we did IVF. Like many other PP, we decided that we were going to take what we got - it would not have changed our decision to carry both babies to term if one of them had a medical or chromosomal issue. You will probably get so many level II ultrasounds during the rest of your pregnancy that they should be able to spot anything suspicious. You are smart to wait until your level 2 - they will take a good look at the babies hearts and the measurements and should have a good idea of whether or not the babies have any issues.

 

I knew I read it somewhere (on a different discussion board):

This is a quote out of the 2007 OB/Gyn Compendium:

"Multifetal gestations in older women also complicates prenatal genetic screening and diagnosis. Increased maternal age alone increases the risk of fetal trisomies, such as Down syndrome. The presence of multiple fetuses increases the mathematical probability that 1 or more fetuses will be affected and, thus, results in a higher risk for the pregnancy than that attributed to maternal age alone. For example, because either 1 or both fetuses in a twin pair could have Down syndrome, the ultimate risk of Down syndrome in a twin pregnancy carried by a 33-year-old woman is the same as the risk in a singleton pregnancy carried by a 35-year-old woman (36). Accordingly, a Down syndrome risk equivalent to that of a 35-year-old woman will occur at successively younger maternal ages as the number of fetuses increases. "

This is why 33+ is considered AMA for twin mommies. My doc told me the same, but I couldn't remember why exactly.

 

I will have just turned 33 when I deliver, so far my doctor has not said anything about considering me as a high risk as a 35 year old. Thank you, Sofiesmom for the info.
My husband and I elected not to do the quadscreen because our doctor told us how easy it is to get a false positive in a single pregnancy and that there really is no chart to read the results of a twin pregnancy, so we figured: what's the point? Even if we found our babies had Down's it would not change a thing about how we feel about them. The thought of possibly having to get an aminocentsis scares me, we tried so hard to have these babies and I don't want to jeopardize them. So much to think about!!!

 

Thanks everyone for all the support and information! I will just wait until my US on the 4th, and not worry about it. I was also glad to see the "mathematical" reason for the risk. That all makes since now.

 

I am 33 and never have been told this. The only thing my OB said about increased risks of abnormalities is only because there are 2 children, double the chances that is it. I only had the nuchal screening done for the extra ultrasound and wll not have any other tests done.

 

i turned 34 right after i got pregnant, so i'll still be 34 when they arrive. i did an amnio because of some markers my peri found on the level 2 ultrasound. i was terrified of getting it done, but thankfully it went fine and both babies have normal karotypes.

 

QUOTE(rayelynn @ Aug 2 2007, 12:45 PM) [snapback]355011[/snapback]
I was 37 when my twins were born. I was already high risk being over 35. However, I have never heard anything about 33 + being high risk. If you're old then I'm ancient.



DITTO! ( I need an emoticon with a walker to put here!)
I had an amnio just so if there were any issues...the hubby and I would know how to deal with them once the boys came.