Things you might want to know if you are having twins

The first thing you might want to know is they might be sharing a placenta. Because if they happen to be sharing a placenta and one dies for some reason then the other one has to come out pretty soon (likely within 12 to 24 hours or the other one will be stillborn too). The reason for this is the dead one might give the other one a form of gangrene as the death process continues in the womb for one of the babies deceased. Or the other one still alive might have too much blood to function right. This also can cause kidney and liver problems in the surviving twin as well.

This is one reason why before Ceasarian Sections were common when women had twins they usually died most of the time down through history. Because it is really hard to have twins by natural childbirth without losing either the mother or one of the twins if you try to do natural childbirth.

This is why Sonograms are important and checking whether you have two heartbeats still along the way.

Even with a Ceasarian if you leave your twins in past about 8 months gestation it can be problematic, so it is touch and go when you are having twins or more, you have to be very vigilant and make sure you have a really good diagnostic physician looking after you all the way.

Then in the hospital you need a Doctor who is going to fight for what you need and hopefully you also have a very experienced nurse (20 or 30 years under her belt as a nurse like a Sargeant) to help you fight the hospital protocols that often get in the way of saving lives.

Also, the positions the babies are in in the womb and also whether the umbilical cords are not tangled around one or more of the babies is important to know about too.

Since I'm a new Grandad this is some of the stuff I learned this week in regard to newborns.

Unless you have an experienced nurse fighting for your rights in a busy hospital or a doctor fighting for your needs in a busy hospital you might just fall through the cracks and become a victim of a completely dysfunctional system here in the U.S. where nurses often don't tell doctors what they need to know because their jobs are more important to them than whether anyone lives or dies. This is only an unfortunate part of the reality of hospitals here in the U.S.

We have a comlpetely dysfunctional system where babies are removed from mothers and taken to ICU which could be floors away from the mother.

I was talking to a friend who lives in South Korea (which has one of the best health care systems on earth by the way) and he said that he would never have his wife have a baby in the U.S. because in South Korea they never separate the baby from the mother and instead just create an ICU environment in the mother's  room so the baby and the mother can bond properly and not be separated by up to 6 floors or more in a hospital like you see here in the U.S.

So, he was pretty disgusted with the U.S. system because he has a degree in nursing even though he is not working as a nurse right now since he is overseas.

The basis of the problem of our system is this. Doctors are too arrogant to listen to nurses often so nurses don't share anything useful with doctors so people die or have problems. Then hospitals and doctors get sued and then this increases malpractice insurance costs.

And this is in addition to the problem of being able to afford ANY healthcare insurance in the first place.


Before I went On Medi-care about 5 years ago now my wife and I were paying 1400 a month for insurance for me just for basic care and emergencies from about age 60 to 65.

This is how bad it is here in the U.S.

However, if you are making say minimum wage and lets say an average per state for minimum wage is $10 an hour. If you are working a 40 hour week four weeks a month that is only 1600 a month.

So, you can see the problem here can't you. If I was making 1600 a month and had to pay 1400 a month for health insurance between 60 and 65 likely the best outcome might have been just to shoot myself and get it over with if I had any health issues that were serious at all.

I'm sure you see my point.

But, this is the real issue of the average person here in the U.S. On top of all this if you have a serious health issue you aren't even going to be making that 1600 a month are you?

So, you can see by many of the things on this page just how screwed up our health care system really is!

And you also realize why poorer whites and other races are dying like flies between ages 50 and 65.

But, here's the thing. Likely if you can just make it to 65 like a friend of mine did a year ago you might easily make it to 90 or above because of medi-care.  As long as you have your finances worked out for living expenses and travel.