Twin pregnancies in Sub-Saharan Africa – Lagos experience

Abstract

A total of 2,879 deliveries were conducted within 2 years and 92 were twin deliveries constituting 3.2% or 1 in 31 deliveries. The mean age and parity was 30.4 ± 3.9 years and 1.3 ± 1.4 respectively. Male infants constituted 54.4% of the twins with a sex ratio of 1.2 boys to 1.0 girl. Among twin deliveries, presentation of cephalic-cephalic was the commonest. Caesarean section rate was 65.2% in the overall twin pregnancies. Commonest indication for perinatal admission was prematurity. None of the twins delivered before 28 weeks gestation survived whereas survival was almost certain from 32 weeks gestation. There was generally no significance difference in the outcome of the babies with respect to chorionicity. Perinatal mortality was high compared with that of singleton with prematurity being the leading cause of death.

Keywords::

• Incidence
• perinatal and maternal outcome
• twin pregnancies

Declaration of Interest: There are no conflicts of interest.