Chapter three: The death of a twin around birth

Chapter Three : the death of a twin around birth

This chapter was so sad to write. There are some very sad stories included, sent to me by womb twin survivors, but I can't publish them here because of copyright and privacy issues. They make poignant reading.

Multiple pregnancy is dangerous for both mother and babies. There is a higher incidence of neonatal death, SIDS and stillbirth in a twin pregnancy than in a singleton pregnancy.  If your twin died in the third trimester or around birth, then you can call yourself a womb twin survivor, because you only knew your living twin when you were together in the womb.

Here is a snippet for you:

Stillbirth of one twin
When labour begins, even after careful examination of the mother, it is not always obvious that there are twins.  These days, a twin birth is often induced early or at least monitored with extreme care.  However, before ultrasound scans - and even today in less well-equipped hospitals - it can happen that a second baby is delivered and takes everyone by surprise. Under those circumstances things can go very badly for the second twin, especially if he or she is in a breech presentation (head uppermost.)  With these unexpected twin deliveries, the second baby is often stillborn or lives only for a very short time.  Many do not survive the trauma of birth. The stillbirth rate in twins is double the rate for single births.

Accidental death of one twin
Even shortly before birth, a trauma to the womb or the mother may cause the death of one twin by precipitating a sudden labour when insufficient medical attention is available to prevent disaster.  Sometimes one baby is born dead as a direct result of the trauma.

Umbilical cord complications causing the death of one twin
The average umbilical cord is about 55cm long.  If the cord is much longer it can twist into a knot and the blood supply can no longer reach the baby, in which case the baby asphyxiates and dies.  If it is too short, then when labour begins, the placenta may be torn from the wall of the womb causing a fatal haemorrhage.  When MZ twins share an amniotic sac, the two cords may become entangled and the blood supply to one or both babies may be interrupted, with fatal consequences.  Also a longer cord can become wrapped around the neck of one of the babies, who is at risk of asphyxiation during delivery.  As prenatal ultrasound is becoming  increasingly sophisticated, many of these conditions are being diagnosed before birth.  However, some of these problems are not apparent before delivery, even with the idea of ultrasound.  Where the placentas of DZ twins overlap, this may badly affect the position of the cord of one twin.  Meanwhile, the other twin has a centrally-attached cord, and will thrive and grow rapidly, while the other, with little access to nourishment, will be much smaller and may not survive.

Infection causing the death of one twin
Bacteria entering the vagina can cause an infection and inflammation of the amnion and chorion (the membranes surrounding the baby.)  If an infection develops in the third trimester of an MZ twin pregnancy the inflammation of the shared membranes can trigger premature labour, as a result of which one or both twins may be born dead or die at birth.

More about this book

Chapter two: every twin is different

 Twins, not even identical ( monozygotic) twins, are not the same as each other.  We are all different and we all have a different life path.  Chapter two looks at twins and how they are made, with lots of diagrams to make it quite clear. The prebirth memory - the Dream of the Womb - is remarkably precise so these biological details are crucial to womb twin survivors so they can understand why they feel as they do.  It makes a huge difference for example if you are the sole survivor of a fraternal twin pair rather than an identical twin pair.

Here is a bit more about fraternal twins and how they start off differently from each other and have a separate and different life path from then on.


Chapter two: The making of twins

The necessary support for a successful DZ (dizygotic) "fraternal" twin pregnancy

Any twin pregnancy is a risky and uncertain business, from conception to birth, for the human womb is designed to carry only one baby at a time. To guarantee the conception and birth of a pair of DZ twins, that particular menstrual cycle must be well able to support a twin pregnancy, and that is not always the case. Several criteria must be met if twins are to be conceived: it has to be the right time in the month for the womb to be receptive to sperm, so that plenty of sperm can reach both of the
eggs, and there must be enough mucus for the transport of two eggs down the Fallopian tube. There must be at least two viable eggs, capable of being fertilized by the partner’s sperm. There must be enough sperm released around the time of ovulation, within a window of six days, so that one sperm can successfully fertilize each of two eggs. The womb must be well-supplied with blood vessels so that both of the fertilized eggs can implant successfully in the uterine wall. Even then, this is not the end of the story: if we are to see a DZ twin birth, both embryos must survive for long enough to be born alive.

Each twin has a different journey

The twin zygotes are individuals from the very start. They have different genes. Each zygote makes a separate journey as they both develop into blastocysts. The two blastocysts may travel close together or far apart. They might be in the same Fallopian tube or in separate tubes. As each one reaches the womb and the process of implantation begins, then one tiny trophoblast may embed in a more advantageous position than the other. Even if they both come to rest on a good site on the womb wall, one twin may manage to implant more successfully than the other. After implantation, one twin may develop faster than the other. The two placentas may develop on opposite sides of the womb wall, away from each other, or close together and side by side. If the two placentas develop very close together, they tend to fuse together into one placental mass. It has been known for DZ twins to both develop enclosed by a single shared chorion. Monochorionic DZ twins are extremely rare in natural conceptions, but after IVF or hyper-ovulation drugs have been used, an increasing number of cases are being found.

For more, see here

The new book- the place where it all started

Where does one begin a book about womb twin survivors?  It truly began in 2002, in a dramatherapy ritual workshop in London a few hours  after I had enacted a funeral ritual for my twin brother, who was probably lost about 13 weeks or so in a miscarriage, probably an abortion attempt. I knew then, that I had found my life's work - that I would write about womb twin survivors. Eight years later, I have the first book finished.
So, after six years of research, I started writing in 2009, and the book was, as it were, conceived.
Where to begin? Well, conception had to be the first story to tell.

PART ONE : the death of a twin before birth
(Each  of the five parts is introduced by a wonderful poem written by a womb twin survivor, but  you will have to wait for publication to see those.)

Chapter One: The making of you


(Here is some of what the first chapter says:)

Whoever you are reading this, when you were no more than a twinkle in your father’s eye, the making of you had already begun. You came into being as a separate, unique, brand-new little person at the moment of your conception. Now conception requires two tiny single-cell gametes to meet, one from Mum and one from Dad. Mum’s gamete is called an ovum - sometimes called a human egg - and Dad’s gamete is called a spermatozoon - usually known as a sperm.
Sexual reproduction - and this is after all what we are talking about - has been going for a very long time. Largely by a process of trial and error, this extremely complex and delicate process, operating at
a microscopic level, has been honed to a nicety over the generations. Your Mum and Dad played their biological part to perfection, as they negotiated themselves into position to enable conception to occur. It may have been carefully planned, impulsive, entirely inappropriate or even morally wrong, but once Dad’s sperm and Mum’s egg were in exactly the right position and in precisely the right environment, they made that impossible, crucial connection and merged. That created you. Whatever else you may say about yourself, you are a miracle. We all are.
As we will discover later on, all those years of evolution have not eliminated the hundreds of mishaps that prevent conception or the successful development of the embryo. Over time, intricate and elaborate means have been developed to ensure the survival of our species. Today, if conception and development simply won’t work, despite Mum’s and Dad’s best efforts, we now have artificial means to try and ensure that they can have a baby. They may be still uncertain, but the various artificial reproductive technologies - known as ART- have helped us to understand a little more of how we all came into being.

For full details and a bit more to read, see here.

Obesity and womb twin survivors

Can we  link obesity to being a womb twin survivor? It's an eating disorder so that's a start. 


1. Morbid obesity is a form of slow suicide (womb twin survivors often have suicidal feelings) 
2. Very obese people are twice their normal weight ( like they are two people) 
3 Major bingeing episodes with weight gain happen after  the loss of a close relative ( womb twin survivors are born grieving) 
4. Its so very hard to let go of the weight (womb twin survivors have major problems letting go) 
5. Someone took me seriously when I wrote about this for APPPAH: 
Read about it on Facebook


ABSTRACT: The rapidly developing science of pre-birth psychology is casting a new light on some old problems. One such is morbid obesity, some aspects of which can possibly be explained in the light of prenatal theory. This article sets out the hypothesis that firstly, obesity may represent a self-destructive personal choice. Secondly, there may be a psychological reason why the possibly fatal consequences of that choice are largely ignored by the obese person. Thirdly, the choice and its consequences comprise a style of eating behaviour that seems to re-construct a particular pre-birth experience. In this case, until the prenatal and birth experiences are fully realized and understood, the over-eating behaviour may persist, even unto death.
I'll be here tomorrow, with  news of my new book. Over the next thirty days I will take you through it, chapter by chapter, with some little snippets, just as a thank you for reading my blog.

Time to go public about womb twin survivors!

Its time to stop thinking that we are mistaken, that the loss of a twin before birth cannot have any psychological effect on the survivors.  We are all over the net: on Google ("wombtwin" always comes up no 1, several pages of this project with nearly 8000 results.)  "Womb twin" gets  a more eclectic mix but we are there too.

We have a yahoo forum, a web site, several blogs and a twitter account to pull it all together. We have a Womb Twin  organisation with members. It's all happening!

Want to join our Forum?



Click to join wombtwin


Somehow we have to overcome the prejudice against the womb twin survivors idea, that was so clear when I tried, unsuccessfully, to put Womb twin survivors into wikipedia.  ( Try it.)  It looks like the world is conspiring to make us fade away and vanish, just like our twins.  NO, our twins were not spirited away by aliens, or indeed anyone else. They simply died and we are naturally very sad about that.

BUT WE WON'T BE IGNORED! We will be heard. We will be given space to tell our story. We demand that we be taken seriously.

The Womb Twin book is now corrected and proofed as far as Chapter 20. (10 to go)  On almost every page there is a challenge for psychologists, psychiatrists and other research workers. This book will not be well-received by them because they will have to think again, about so much.

If Sigmund Freud had known about life in the womb and seen twins react to one another in the womb at 9 weeks of pregnancy he would have created some very different material, asked very different questions and formulated a very different view of when consciousness begins. Come on, you Neo- Freudians, admit that your theories are outdated and come and join us in this fabulous journey of discovery back to the womb in search of the lost twins. It has already brought healing to so many people.
This is good work: it heals, it helps, it explains so much.  The world must hear it.

If you have read this far, please link this blog to whatever you are doing, leave a comment, follow this blog or the Twitter page or the Facebook page (all the links are here on this page.) - I can't do this all by myself, so let's all join together and get the information out there NOW.

I'll be back tomorrow with some thoughts about food, obesity and a possible connection between hunger and a twin lost before birth......

Womb twin survivors, hopelessness and suicidal thoughts

The condition of hopelessness is, we are told, a good predictor of suicide.


So what exactly is hopelessness?  A lack of hope, certainly.  So what is hope? 


We are told that hopelessness is related to low self esteem, along with ( there were 73 signs in all)  


49. Job hopping
50. Addictions
51. Negative “I am ” statements
52. Eager to please people all the time
53. Feelings of hopelessness
54. Frequent boasting behaviours
55. Lack of energy
56. Lack of self-awareness
57. Excessive apologizing
58. Lot of negative self talk
59. Irresponsible and not caring of others
60. Neglecting physical appearance to extreme levels
61. Always fighting with others
62. Unable to form healthy relationships with people
63. Thinking too much of oneself
64. Thinking too little of oneself


People sing about a lack of hope: ( At least Marilyn Manson does) 


there's not much left to love
too tired today to hate
I feel the empty
I feel the minute of decay
I'm on my way down now, I'd like to take you with me I'm on my
way down
I'm on my way down now, I'd like to take you with me
I'm on my way down
the minute that it's born
it begins to die
I'd love to just give in,
I'd love to live this lie
I've been to black and back
I've whited out my name
a lack of pain, a lack of hope,
a lack of anything to say
there is no cure for what is killing me
I'm on my way down
I've looked ahead
and everything was dead
I guess that I am too
(chorus)
I'm on my way down now, I'd like to take you with me..


Is this the real story, that womb twin survivors feel that minute of decay? That they know death, the death of half of themselves, so what is death now, but only half a step into the realm of the dead, where your other half lies? Sounds absolutely natural to me.


Of course that is not to consider how your twin, your other half, would feel about you wanting to throw away the life that was granted you at such cost.


Here Bert Helliger had the words:


I am here; you are gone
I will stay here a little bit longer
And then I will join you.


Surely, the antidote to a sense of hopelessness is simple gratitude.
But before you can be thankful to be alive and grant yourself a full and happy life, you must first forgive oneself for being alive at all.
Moreover, one must feel forgiven by your own twin, for being the one who made it to birth.
Perhaps after all the hopelessness that leads to suicide is simple survivor guilt?    That would make sense of something seemingly senseless - a much-loved person, dead by their own hand.
I wonder: would it help the suicidal to stay alive, if they understood the hopelessness they feel is in fact the survivor guilt experienced by most womb twin survivors?

Suicide among womb twin survivors

The rate of suicidal thoughts among womb twin survivors is very high.  The number of successful suicides seems also to be high, but there are no figures for that, only my own experience of knowing four people, (who looked, acted and thought like womb twin survivors but who never knew about it) who killed themselves. 


In two cases it was a long time ago and I didn't know what I was looking at because I knew nothing then about womb twin survivors.  One case of an overdose of insulin in a car park, then there was Roger, who smoked himself into bronchitis and then pneumonia and died in the ICU refusing all antibiotics.  The last two were lovely, lively loving people who just sunk into despair and decided to die.


I listened to the Beyond Belief programme about suicide yesterday. It seems that research has shown that  a loss of hope is a strong predictor of suicide. Gosh.  That's like saying that cardiac arrest is a strong predictor of death.


We need to think carefully about the loss of hope among womb twin survivors. We need to make it quite clear that the wish to die is the wish to pass into the realm of the dead and be forever with your lost twin. 


I need to work on that.  It's in the new book, but its not enough, not yet. 


Some womb twin survivors don't want to alive, if being alive is to be always alone, without their twin.  That's  about the size of it I think.  Comments welcomed, or contact me privately. 


(Still proof reading  and checking the Magnum Opus and looking forward to taking a break!!!!)

HIgh rates of suicide and birth trauma among womb twin survivors

I have been studying birth trauma for a while, as I have been told that is is  related to  suicidal ideation.  Suicidal feelings certainly are related to being a womb twin survivor, as a whopping 40% of the questionnaire respondents agreed strongly with the statement:


I have wanted to commit suicide more than one in my life (see the questionnaire here) 


This is twice the highest rate ( which was in New Zealand) , according to research in 1999.

Weissman, M. M., R. C. Bland, et al. (1999). Prevalence of suicide ideation and suicide attempts in nine countries. Psychological Medicine, Vol. 29, No.1, p. 9-17

About a third of the respondents reported a traumatic birth and I don't have a comparative study to say it its higher or lower than average, and its not the same individuals.

In fact the respondents who reported suicidal feelings were less likely to report birth trauma.   So, back to the drawing board.......

We need more research into all this: I'm doing my little bit, but imagine what a university psychology department could do, with more resources.  Very excited about having 1000 respondents  - as half of them are able to provide evidence of their twin, that's a nice big group of 500 definite womb twin survivors to play with. 

When mums discuss their vanishing twins

Following a pregnancy forum is interesting: the issue of the vanishing twin is so common now that  Mums to be can reassure each other, but there is a great deal of anxiety about it.

On this forum, Baby and Bump, there are remarks such as:

Any one suffered from this?

I have had one case for definite and it caused all sorts of problems in my pregnancy.  It turns out this may be another twin loss and thinking about it I had this with my first daughter 12 years ago.  My midwife wants to do tests as she feel its something to do with the male gender.  I will be sterilised after this baby but still would like to know about it and how or why it happens.

I do have worries and my last pregnancy was awful and baby was small I believed it was to do with her being a twin and want to avoid all this again.

Any stories shared would be fab.  Have you suffered?  Did you have a normal pregnancy after?

When the twins came out of hiding  in the 1980s everyone was astonished about how often it happens. Now its almost routine, but the questions remain: will it harm my child and what can I do to keep my baby from harm?

The physical harm is inevitable, but rare. Its confined mostly to monochorionic monizygotic twins ( in English that means identical twins sharing a placenta.)  Fraternal twins do much better. 

As to any psychological problems, we are working on that ( see the last few posts on this blog and read the article on the womb twin survivors web site for more.

EFT works for young womb twin survivors

Rossanna Massey, D.C., EFT Cert-I, practiced for 17 years as a chiropractic physician when she discovered the effectiveness of using Emotional Freedom Techniques on her patient's chronic pains and health problems -- so much so that she now uses EFT exclusively on her patients and clients, worldwide, with a focus on the emotional underpinnings of serious diseases.

Quite by chance, she carried out EFT with a young womb twin survivor at a party (of all places) and the results were most satisfactory:

To me, one of the most exciting things about being an EFT Practitioner is the frequency of extraordinary emotional excursions that take place outside of our usual one dimensional realm. This is a story about fetal emotions that lay behind a prenatal trauma, and the effects that spilled over into the early childhood of a young boy in Texas.

While at my aunt and uncle's lovely 50th anniversary party in El Paso, Texas, I was introduced to a very nice young couple who heard that I was doing some type of energy work. They wondered if I could possibly help their young son who was an enigma to everyone, and of great concern to both of them.

Enrique and Anita are busy young married professionals in El Paso, who like many other couples their age try hard to balance both family and careers respectively. Although we were at a party, they wanted to know more about EFT. Since my time in Texas was limited, I invited them to a quick trial run of what it looked like, and how it felt, while enforcing the fact that this demonstration was not meant as a parlor trick, but for a possible session later in the week before I left. They quickly agreed, and off we went to my uncle's private office with the child in question. Prior to our meeting I had only heard second hand that their son, Esteban, had a history of regressing drastically after having his six-months round of vaccinations. Little did I know what was about to unfold with the rest of his story.

Three years ago Christmas Eve, Anita fell ill, and remained so even after she was pronounced pregnant with maternal twins by her obstetrician six days later. Sonogram results showed two separate placentas. One fetus, a boy, was thriving, while the other, a girl, appeared much smaller in comparison, and was no longer alive. The clinical name for this type of twin fetal presentation is called the "Vanishing Twin Syndrome". Already having two other young children, Andrea and Diego, and in spite of the fact that one of the fetuses didn't survive, Anita and Enrique were nevertheless grateful for their remaining gift of life. With that in mind, Anita reports not having been emotional about the loss of the infant whatsoever, and took it all in stride. But physically, she spent the next four months relentlessly nauseated without reprieve, unable to tolerate even the most benign scent without an extreme hypersensitive reaction.

The rest of this article describes how EFT helped this little boy in astonishing ways.

It's amazing and may be the way forward for very young womb twin survivors with extreme problems.

At the WombTwin annual conference this year on Nov 19th they will hold an EFT workshop with Ros Powell.  It will be interesting to see how it works in practice.

Is my little womb twin survivor missing her twin?

This was sent to me a while ago and I want to share it with you all:

At 32 weeks gestation, one of our identical twins died from an umbilical cord accident. My doctor performed an emergency C-section to save the surviving twin. She was very sick and lived on the ventilator for four days. She stayed in NICU for about a month before she came home. She is now 4 years old  and has started Preschool. She is having a very difficult time. She has been crying every day--worried that I will not come to pick her up. (I have never left my child anywhere, ever.) I don't know where these feelings/fears of abandonment are coming from. All of a sudden she has some kind of seperation anxiety. She has gone to babysitters with no problem. I don't understand the school anxiety. (She does have twin sisters whom are 2 years old. We are not sure if they are identical. Both pregnancies were conceived naturally.) She has always known about her twin. We talk about her often. Could it be that she is old enough now to see and understand the bond between her twin sisters and could this be causing her to miss her own twin and possibly have feelings of loneliness??? Your insight would be greatly appreciated. I just don't understand her feelings right now. It breaks my heart to think she is feeling lonely and/or missing her twin. 

My advice was this:

• This little girl simply needs to understand that her feelings are appropriate and not in any way wrong or a mistake.
• The fact that Mum doesn't understand her feelings may be a real problem because identical twin survivors need to be understood without ever having to explain.
• Some drawing, painting modelling with clay or sand may help her to express the inexpressible. 
• A twin substitute, which she can take to school with her, may also help.

I await a response from this worried mother.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

My baby's womb twin died - should I worry?

This new information about womb twin survivors is  helping womb twin survivors to come to terms with their loss. " I always thought I was just weird", says Emma,  whose twin was lost in a miscarriage at 13 weeks of pregnancy. " I am so glad I found this website. Now I know I am quite normal. its a great feeling." 

However, there is a darker side to this story: as the psychological difficulties that womb twin survivors face are being more widely discussed, and all kinds of theories are being aired, some parents are beginning to worry. 

Anna wrote to me: "Simon, my 3 year old is a surviving twin. When the placenta came out the doctor found a dead identical twin.  I was recently told that there have been studies done that show some cases of the living child taking on the dead one's personality.  My son is like two people, one way one minute and completely different the next.  I want to know if this is something I need to worry about." 

Should parents worry if their child is a womb twin survivor?

It is now known from several studies that many surviving twins become distressed at some point in life, often in adolescence, but also some surviving twins are not at all distressed.  Researchers have yet to understand why this is. It seem that the loss of a fraternal twin is less traumatic than the loss of an identical twin. The deep bond between twins, forged in the womb is strongest between identical twins and the identical womb twin survivors do seem to be the most likely to be distressed by their pre-birth experience.

What can parents do for  womb twin survivors?

There is a lot that parents can do: research seems to indicate that if an individual knows for sure from the beginning that they once had a twin, that does became part of who they are. Then they understand their feelings better if they do get upset at any time. They can know they are responding perfectly normally to the genuine loss of their "other half".   A loving family and lots of encouragement and love seems to help a great deal, so in many cases a surviving twin will grow up with little more than a tendency to moodiness.

The loss of a twin, like any major event taking place during pregnancy, is worth keeping in mind as a potential effect (either positive and negative) on  your child's development as an individual.  The science of pre-birth psychology  is now well established and we can be sure that our time in the womb does much to shape our personality in born life.  Womb twin  survivors are a particularly interesting case in point.

        

Best practice for parents with a wombtwin survivor in the family 

• Tell your child about their twin and tell them early in life
• Keep  yourself well informed about the medical details of that particular pregnancy, so you will be able to answer questions as they arise, at various stages of your child's life.
• Keep informed about the potential psychological effects of pre-birth twin loss so you can notice any problems arising
• Make contact with other parents of womb twin survivors for mutual support and good information. 
• Create some kind of physical proof of your child's lost twin: a statue, soft toy or plant in the garden etc. as a focus for your child's feelings of sadness or loss, should any such feelings arise.
• Validate your own child's feelings in the face of public scepticism that womb twin survivors truly do feel a sense of something missing - however hard it is for you to believe that!
• Love, accept and encourage your child,  as you would any of your other children.
• The fact that wombtwin survivors are different can be celebrated as a special gift, for they are often very sensitive and empathetic.

Vanishing twins, UFOs, aliens and indigos

Caryl Dennis is a womb twin survivor, but she would not call herself that.  She is the moderator of the "Vanishing Twin" forum, which she set up in 2001.

Caryl has  written this about herself:

My name is Caryl Dennis and I am a single twin.  I am not a doctor or psychologist.  The following answers are based on my research into and experience with the so-called Vanishing Twin Phenomenon (or Syndrome), subsequently referred to as “VTP”.   

I have communicated telepathically and in the dreamtime with my “vanished” twin, whom I call Karyl.  I also have siblings who are twins and my youngest brother’s twin also vanished.  I am the creator and moderator of the Vanishing Twin Yahoo E-Group, which has been going strong since 2001, and I researched and co-authored The Millennium Children: Tales of the Shift (1997), which contains a large section on the VTP.

She was on Blog Talk Radio yesterday talking about the "vanishing twin."

LISTEN HERE

There is a strong connection ( for some womb twin survivors) with "psychic phenomena."  Caryl  heard a voice in her head and she received information from her, and in the end she realised it was her twin.  She says that her twin "shares the same body" with her.

She has linked the loss of a twin to UFO experiences, visits by aliens; the "indigo" children and the "starseeds", who are people who feel they are here to "help the planet."

The indigo children are also womb twin survivors, a real group of kids with special gifts, often hyperaware and highly intuitive.

Sadly, when I put up a Wikipedia piece under the title " womb twin survivors"  I  was given short shrift and the article lasted only a short time before it was wiped as "unscientific."  The first remark was:

That wombtwin survival stuff is totally bogus on the same level as starsign astrology and alien mindcontrol.  It doesn't really deserve mentioning in an article about a medical phenomenon. (sven@scientist.com)

Read a fascinating discussion here on Wikipedia and PLEASE add your opinions to help this along!!!

Just sorting out the 200 plus scientific references for my latest book...................

Womb twin survivors - read the introduction

You can now read the introduction to my new book on The Wren publications site.

Many years ago, at the start of this century in fact, I came to the astonishing conclusion that I once had a twin, but my twin died before I was born.   Almost at once, I began to research this  phenomenon.  I quickly came across the concept of the “vanishing” twin and discovered that this was more common than I could ever have realized.  I named the survivors of a twin or multiple pregnancy “womb twin” survivors.  As I made my own pathway towards healing, I embarked on a journey of discovery that has lasted until this day and will no doubt continue. 

I now know that on average, just one percent of births in the world are twin births.  Research has revealed that for every pair of twins born there are at least ten singleton babies born whose twin died in the womb, their “womb twin”.  So we now know that there are more than 600 million womb twin survivors in the world but until recently we could not identify them.

It is astonishing that society has somehow managed not to notice or correctly identify such an enormous group of millions of people.  This is probably because until the 1980s the loss of a twin in the womb was not fully recognized or acknowledged.  People can hardly be expected to pay any heed to the needs of the sole survivors if the lost twins remain hidden from view.  

Research using ultrasound scans has repeatedly shown us how many twins are lost in the first few weeks of life.  These are called “vanishing twins” but they don’t really vanish - they die.  Their tiny bodies may be miscarried, disintegrate or gradually fade away, leaving tiny traces that an expert may be able to identify but that many people would not even notice.

Since that amazing day when I realized that I am a womb twin survivor, I have been looking for the others.  One by one, womb twin survivors have come to me by means of my web site.  With their help, 

I have learned how to identify them and help them heal.  I know that womb twin survivors have a need to understand why they feel as they do.  In order to help them, I intend to bring these little lost twins out of the darkness and into the light.  This book is their story, and it may be yours, too............. 

Read the whole document here

Spreading the word about womb twin survivors

Gradually but inevitably,  news about womb twin survivors is spreading.   My womb twin survivor friend (and there  are dozens of them now, all great people)  has been doing some research and has put a note on his Face Book page. 

What does a foetus experience in the womb?

The popular view, even today, is that a foetus is 'nothing but a bunch of cells', 'a blob of jelly', 'just an extension of the mother's body' and that it has no thoughts, feelings or ability to sense, experience or interact with its surroundings.

Recent research, however, is beginning to reveal a very different picture. In the last 15-20 years, a lot of work has been done with single survivors of twin and multiple pregnancies. Much of the progress made has been a result of advances in ultrasound technology, which have enabled doctors to see with unprecedented clarity what is going on in the wombs of pregnant women.  read more.....

Then there is Sylvia, a writer, who has written a story about a womb twin survivor and her journey to  discovering more of herself and how the loss of her twin has impacted in her life.  There is a post on the worldwide Womb Twin blog about it.

It is not uncommon for people, seemingly ignorant of this ‘loss’ to develop fantasies about “being with someone else,” or needing to live their lives for two. Is it a personal memory of womb life or an intuition of an unexpressed part of their mother’s mind?   If told later in life about the loss, there are often feelings of relief at not being “crazy” but sometimes too, anger and distress at not being told all along. 

Sylvia Dickey Smith‘s novel. A WAR OF HER OWN makes an important contribution to womb-twin survivors by raising awareness of this phenomenon and educating others as to what can be its long-term possible emotional effects. read more

Not to mention the work of Alfred Austermann whose book " The surviving twin syndrome,"  translated from the original German, details the psychological effects upon the womb twin survivor and how they can be discovered and explained.


I could go on and mention prenatal psychotherapy and all the other therapies that workn on prebirth influences: I could list the many blogs that mention the "vanishing twin" syndrome.   There are several Womb Twin blogs now on this subject as the Internet does its work and people are at last beginning to talk about this thing that so many experts insist cannot possibly happen : that even when a twin is lost after just a few weeks of life in the womb, there is a profound and lifelong effect on the sole survivor.


There are more than 600,000,000 womb twin survivors in the world. I am one and perhaps you are another.  That's two of us.  Let's spread the world and find the others. I have found about 1000, but that's only a drop in the ocean. There is more work to be done and more womb twin survivors to be found. 


If you have posted on your blog or facebook about this, please let me know the link and I'll put it here.


Let's get together: - united, we will triumph over  the sceptics. They have absolutely no idea what we are talking about, but then 90% of the population don't understand this.  That doesnt mean we have to listen to them. We know, they don't. 


Back to the book: I will have Part One, "The Making of You" which is full of all the medical facts about conception and twinning plus diagrams,  ready today for the FINAL proof reading. The cover is now ready.

The final cover

Save money and make your order in advance here ( all advance copies will be personally signed by me. Gosh.

10 weeks! Twins reacting to each other in the womb!

At 65 days of gestation, twins can be observed interacting.   That's  9-10 weeks.

Beautiful coloured photo image link here  of 65 day foetus in the sac.

"Twin pregnancies provide us with the opportunity to observe first reactions towards touch in utero, and this study illustrates the onset and development of these contacts. Forty women with twin pregnancies volunteered to take part in this study.

Between 8 and 12 weeks' gestation, ultrasound examinations were performed transvaginally, and from 13 weeks onwards transabdominally, at weekly intervals. 

Primary contacts followed an action-reaction model, and usually lasted < 3 s. These contacts were initially slow and then became fast. 

The first reactions of the co-twin towards touch were observed at 65 postmenstrual days. Contacts of longer duration between both bodies including extremities, or contacts initiated by sucking movements towards the co-twin were defined as complex contacts and were observed from 85 and 92 post-menstrual days, respectively. 

Nearly all contacts occurred significantly earlier in monochorionic compared to dichorionic twins. Female/female pairs seemed to develop complex body contacts earlier than male/male pairs, but for the onset of other contacts we have not yet found significant differences between gender combinations."

Here is the article

Wonderful.  We knew, didn't we? I  knew that I could remember my twin, somewhere nearby twitching around. I certainly knew when he wasn't there any more.....

BUT this article was published FIFTEEN YEARS ago. Who talks about this? We should be shouting it to the world!

The time is NOW !!! If you are reading this, please spread the word......

An image of a lost womb twin

If your twin lived for 8 weeks but then died in the womb or was miscarried, this is how he or she looked.



(This image is of a baby lost in a miscarriage.)

All the various organs and tissues are present. The term "vanished twin" does not adequately describe this eventuality. I prefer the term "womb twin", for a twin embryo or foetus who only knew life in the womb.

Twins of this age are sentient beings, capable of awareness of each other.

Imaginary friends

They have been talking about imaginary friends on the radio, and saying it's normal to have one.
Listen here


Dr. Karen Majors 
Community Psychology Service, Barking and Dagenham

It used to be thought that children with imaginary friends were in the minority. It has sometimes been assumed that children had imaginary friends because they were lonely and lacked real friends. Perhaps this is why some parents and others may show concern when a child has an imaginary friend, particularly once they have started school, and older children and adolescents tend to keep their imaginary friends a secret. Imaginary companions or friends have certainly been a misunderstood phenomenon. There has been surprisingly little research about imaginary friends. Consequently there has been little information about how many children have imaginary friends, what the imaginary friends are like and why children have them. Recent research has been providing some surprising answers to some of these questions. Firstly, there is now clear evidence that imaginary friends are a common feature in childhood development. Did you have an imaginary friend?  Was your imaginary friend your lost twin?  Is he or she still there, sharing your life? I wonder if this researcher has thought about this reason for having an imaginary friend?  I would guess not. ( Just realised that 60% of the people who completed my research questionnaire in 2008/9 had an imaginary friend.)

Because the misdiagnosis of mental illness has a life-changing effect on the unfortunate patient ( as many womb twin survivors know to their own personal cost, see article here) doctors would like to find a physical  marker they can depend on. The Japanese have been working on a more reliable way to diagnose mental illness using near infra-red on the brain, according to the latest edition of Nature:

Quote:  Incorrect diagnosis of people with psychiatric disorders has far-reaching implications. Miss the manic phases of people with bipolar disorder, for instance, and, rather than the mood-stabilizers they need, they might be given antidepressants. The drugs could make them 'hypomanic' — a state in which they might spend money recklessly, invest irrationally and jabber incessantly so that friends and employers no longer want them around — and tip them into even more extreme bipolar cycles. Meanwhile, if the hallucinations of a person with schizophrenia don't become apparent during analysis, the patient may likewise be diagnosed as depressed, be given antidepressants and go on to become even more withdrawn. Unfortunately, misdiagnosis happens all too often — in around 70% of cases of bipolar disorder, according to some estimates. And such mistakes often go uncorrected for years.  more...

The misdiagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder has already been mentioned on this blog and is a matter of deep concern to me.  The so called "symptoms" of Borderline Personality Disorder are no more and no less than the ordinary, normal, psychological, emotional and existential response of a womb twin survivor who has not yet healed from their loss.

You can read my latest article  here.  No journal would publish it, as it's far too controversial.

When this book is out, it will make people think again. I hope.

(Onward...still correcting the first proofs of the book. Chapter 9 coming up....)

Abortion of one twin

I have been thinking about the ways that a twin may die, and of course abortion is one way.
This is what I wrote about it in Chapter  5 of the new book:


Abortion of one twin

When a woman goes for an abortion but is unknowingly pregnant with twins, she may remain pregnant afterwards if both babies have not been removed. Some women in this situation may attempt a claim for compensation to cover the cost of bringing up the remaining unwanted and unexpected child. One such claim was successful: - Kim Nicholls, from Staffordshire in England, successfully claimed £10,000 compensation when she was given an injection to abort her pregnancy yet remained pregnant and delivered a healthy daughter some months later.  As a result of successful claims such as these, doctors are now advised to take particular care to check that only one foetus is present before every abortion procedure.

I cut this paragraph out of the chapter and it looks very short, hardly enough to do justice to how it feels to be  a womb twin survivor as a result of such a traumatic event.  
I am pretty sure that my mother aborted my twin - not deliberately, you understand, she would have had no idea she was carrying twins.  It took me until I was about 57 years old to get over it, but then I didn't realise I was a womb twin survivor until I was 55.  But once I knew what the problem was I could begin to heal.  The first step was to forgive my mother - oddly, it was the easiest step, for I know she had no idea what she had done and must have been most surprised when she found was still pregnant, after all that.    


My story is the last chapter of A Silent Cry, if you want to know more.  Its also available as a free download from here.


I hear from womb twin survivors from time to time who know (or  have guessed) that this is what happened to them.   One of those stories I adapted for this movie: