Fewer U.S. families are seeing double, according to a government report that finds a drop in new twins. Twin births steily increased for more than three deces, driven largely by older white moms undergoing fertility treatments. But rate of twin births apparently peaked in 2014 and has fallen 4% since. Last year, rate hit its lowest point in a dece, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.

modest drop in Twin births 

drop is modest, but health officials say it is good news. Pregnancy with more than one raises risks of complications and death for both mor and her fetuses. Complications include premature birth and low birth weight. “In media, re are often stories about very cute twins and talking about how great to have two babies at same time,” said CDC’s Dr. Dmitry Kissin. But “se stories don’t focus on risk.” Last year, about 124,000 babies were twins _ about 1 of every 31 births, same as a dece earlier. rate peaked at 1 in 29 in 2014. CDC did t release figures on triplets or or multiple births, but said data suggests it’s trending same way.

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Why decline? 

Experts can’t say for sure. But Joyce Martin, report’s le author, ted decrease occurred only in white women and in women 30 or older. Those women are biggest customers of expensive in vitro fertilization treatments, which are involved in roughly 15% of multiple births. And re’s been a shift in how that technique is done. In vitro fertilization involves surgically removing eggs from a woman’s ovaries, combining m with sperm in laboratory, and transferring days-old embryo to woman’s uterus. More than a dece ago, it was standard to implant two or more embryos to improve chances of success. But that also greatly increased odds of more than one baby.

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Since n, re have been vances in growing embryos longer in lab and testing m for genetic problems. That’s allowed doctors to select best single embryo to use, said Dr. Aaron Styer, an infertility treatment specialist in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. success rate for one embryo rose from about 20% in 1980s to around 50% today, he said. Meanwhile, insurers and medical organizations increasingly have been pushing doctors to transfer single embryos more often. Patients have bought into it. y understand that’s ideal pregnancy, Styer said. Today, about two-thirds of IVF procedures use one embryo, according to CDC’s Kissin.

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