title: Multiple births and visible birth defects in 13,000 consecutive deliveries in one Ghanaian hospital.
abstract: The analysis of the data from this study, though not complete, has shown the following: 1) High rates of plural births may be expected in Ghanaian populations (3.21% for twins, 0.05% for triplets). 2) Hellin's law relating to the incidence of multiple births has been found to apply to a Ghanaian population. 3) Our data show that maternal age and parity have considerable effect on twinning. 4) Multiple pregnancies may not, in themselves, constitute a risk to the mother. On the other hand, the birthweight of the babies may be the cause of hazard at childbirth.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000013:Congenital Abnormalities / Q000453:epidemiology*; D004200:Diseases in Twins / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005869:Ghana; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008423:Maternal Age; D010298:Parity; D011247:Pregnancy; D011250:Pregnancy Complications, Hematologic; D011272:Pregnancy, Multiple; D012805:Sickle Cell Trait; D014310:Triplets; D014427:Twins