Vaginal Delivery Safe For Women Pregnant With Twins

Women expecting twins do not need to undergo cesarean section, a latest study claimed.

The study looked at data of over 2,800 pregnant women from 25 different countries, all expecting twins. Researchers at the Health Sciences Center in Toronto found that there would be no harm if they opted for vaginal delivery.

Half the expecting mothers opted for C-section and other half delivered the twins vaginally. The women were interviewed after childbirth and it was observed that only two percent of infants died or had serious birth defects. The experts maintained that the birthing method did not influence the health of the babies.

The results also showed that 56 percent of the women followed their plan of delivering twins naturally, 40 percent gave birth via C-section and four percent used both methods for delivering each twin.

"These results do not indicate that all sets of twins should be delivered vaginally," Michael Greene of Massachusetts General Hospital said in the statement. "Obstetricians exercising their best clinical judgment delivered both twins by cesarean section in nearly 40 percent of the women assigned to planned vaginal delivery, which undoubtedly contributed to the salutary outcomes," he wrote. "However, the results of this study suggest that a plan to deliver appropriately selected sets of twins vaginally is a reasonably safe choice in skilled hands."

In the U.S., C-sections are performed in one-third of all births and three-fourths of all twin births. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention data, the rate of twin births has gone up 76 percent since 1980.

The study is published in New England Journal of Medicine.