eli5: why do women sometimes give birth to twins and triplets
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Women have two ovaries, and sometimes an egg will be released from each ovary at the same time. If both eggs are fertilised and develop successfully, you get fraternal twins.
Sometimes, a single egg is fertilised and during the cell division process it splits completely into two fetuses. This is when you get identical twins. They’re identical because they have precisely the same DNA, as they came from the same egg and sperm.
Triplets can sometimes be a combination of two identical and one fraternal twin – this is when both things happened at the same time. Two eggs were released, of which one split into two fetuses while the other developed into a single baby.
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