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Hum. Reprod. Advance Access published online on August 6, 2008
Human Reproduction, doi:10.1093/humrep/den305
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Letter to the Editor

Why twin pregnancies are more successful at advanced than young maternal age? A potential role of ‘terminal reproductive investment’

Samuli Helle

Section of Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, FI-20014 Turku, Finland

Correspondence address. Tel: +358-2-333-6559; Fax: +358-2-333-6550; E-mail: samuli.helle@utu.fi

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.

Sir,

The article by Delbaere et al. ‘Perinatal outcome of twin pregnancies in women of advanced age’, in Hum Reprod (2008), showed that irrespective of reproductive techniques, socio-economic status and the zygosity of twins, perinatal outcome of twin pregnancies is more favourable in primiparous women aged 35 or over compared with primiparous women aged 25–29 years. As stated by the authors themselves, this is a paradoxical phenomenon, because singletons born to older mothers are commonly at disadvantage (Tarin et al., 1998Go). Both the physiological mechanisms and the ultimate causes behind this phenomenon remain unknown. Here, I propose one potential resolution, based on evolutionary theory, that might help . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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