Twins peak: Double births reach all-time high

Rise comes as more people use assisted reproductive technology and as an increasing number of women give birth at older age.

More twins – almost one in 40 children – are being born than ever before, according to research published on Friday, citing the rapid rise in medically assisted reproduction as a major factor. More than 1.6 million twins are now being born every year, researchers said in a paper published in the scientific journal Human Reproduction. “The relative and absolute numbers of twins in the world are higher than they have ever been since the mid-twentieth century and this is likely to be an all-time high,” Professor Christiaan Monden, of the University of Oxford (UK), one of the study’s authors, said.