Identical or Monozygotic twins

[judylk1]

My sister's daughter has just found out that she is carrying twins. Because there is no history on either side of the family of twins, I have read that the chance of having identical or Monozygotic twins is higher. Is this true?

[carlyn_ann]

hi

ive herd that identical are more rare than fraternal twins. im having identical twins but in my family there has been a set of identical twins in every second generation so i guess that defies the odds that only fraternal twisn run in familys im not too sure

[pookie1121]

The chance of having fraternal twins is higher than having identical twins.

Fraternal twins is caused by two eggs being released, and that sometimes runs in families...so if you have a history of twins in your family, most likely that is the reason - the women have double egg releases.  In addition, that also runs in cultures - certain african cultures have higher rate of fraternal twins and some asian cultures have very low rate of fraternal twins.

Identical twins happen spontaneously and there is a equal % chance of that happening (1:300) throughout the world.

[FebruaryBaby]

I was told by my Doctor that Ferternal was more common.  Also was told that alot of ferternal twins look more a like then identical, apparently Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are ferternal and I didn't know that