I am eight weeks pregnant with twins. I saw both heartbeats a week ago. She has assisted at over 1,000 births and is currently teaching in the nurse-midwifery program at the University of Minnesota. The happy diagnosis of twins also carries the realistic prognosis that this pregnancy may be at greater risk for problems.
Miscarriage occurs at approximately a three times greater rate with multiple fetuses.
The reassurance that we can sometimes provide to women after seeing the fetal heart on ultrasound does not necessarily extend to a twin pregnancy. Because twins are more likely to suffer other problems, visualization of the fetal heart, while somewhat reassuring, is not as reassuring. When such discrepancy exists, the rate of miscarriage is 50 percent or higher. Miscarriage may impact only one baby. In this case, one twin is reabsorbed leaving the other twin to develop normally.