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Secular Changes of Twinning Rates in Nordic Populations*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

A. W. Eriksson ,
C. Abbott ,
P. J. Kostense  and
J. O. Fellman
A. W. Eriksson
Affiliation:
Folkhälsan, Institute of Genetics, Population Genetics Unit, Helsingfors, Finland
C. Abbott
Affiliation:
Institute of Human Genetics, Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
P. J. Kostense
Affiliation:
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
J. O. Fellman
Affiliation:
Folkhälsan, Institute of Genetics, Population Genetics Unit, Helsingfors, Finland

Extract

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In each species, natural selection has resulted in an optimal litter size, to ensure the largest average number of surviving offspring and the lowest maternal mortality. The terrestrial insectivores from which the primates evolved had large litters. It has been argued that in primates adaptation to an arboreal mode of life led to a reduction of litter size to a single offspring because of the difficulty of producting and caring for a large litter in a tree [6]. A recent critical survey of the literature indicates that twinning frequency in most nonhuman primates is lower than in man [20].

There are clear ethnogeographic differences in the incidence of human twinning. Among peoples of Eastern Asia, multiple maternities are rare; in Japan for instance, the twinning rate is only 3-7 per mill, according both to the official statistics and hospital records. These low rates seem not to be caused by the facts that it is customary in Japan to have children very early in life or that twin births were at one time viewed with displeasure and concealed, or sometimes twins were even killed in some areas [21].

In hospital series among some Negro tribes almost 10 times higher twinning frequencies than among Japanese have been reported e.g. the Yorubas in western Nigeria with values above 60 per mill [24]. However, where national birth statistics of Blacks are available, twinning is lower, e.g. in U.S.A. 13-15 per mill [1].

Type
Research Article
Information
Acta geneticae medicae et gemellologiae: twin research , Volume 44 , Issue 3-4 , October 1995 , pp. 141 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Twin Studies 1995

Footnotes

*

Proceedings of the Second Seminar of Nordic Physical Anthropology, 1990 published under the title “Populations of the Nordic countries. Human population biology from the present to Mesolithic”. Institute of Archeology - Lund University - Sandgatan 1 S-22350 Lund - Sweden.

References

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