What is a womb twin? (4) a miscarried fetus

When a twin is miscarried, there  are two eventualities:

1)  If the twins are dichorionic, that is they do not share a sac or a placenta, when one twin dies the whole conceptus may pass out of the womb via the vagina.

 2) If the twins are monochorionic, or if the placentas have fused,  the body of the dead twin does not leave the womb but remains as a small reminder of what once was, visible after birth, embedded in the placenta of the survivor.

The death of one twin does not usually cause a problem for the sole survivor unless the twins share a chorion, in which case there maybe some problems related to twin-twin transfusion.   In the questionnaire analysis,  it was clear that the miscarriage of one twin was the commonest situation that lead to being the sole survivor, and presumably these pregnancies were dichorionic, as here:

Womb twin survivors can arise out of a variety of prebirth situations, and each situation has a different psychological effect on the survivor.  When one twin dies and passes out of the womb, there is a sense of abandonment;when one twin dies and remains, the survivor is left with  a sense of being only half alive. The Dream of the Womb is based in real events, and is a real memory, only so vague and inchoate it needs a new vocabulary to access.

My new book "Womb twin survivors: the lost in the Dream of the Womb" is my attempt to put words to deep feeling and try to decode the strange  and seemingly irrational messages that arise out of prebirth memory.

NO - you are not crazy, as perhaps you once thought: you are a womb twin survivor!  

For lots more, full references more diagrams and explanations see my latest book.