Ah-HA! Check this out: Nigeria's 'land of twins' baffles fertility experts
My fraternal twin sons, Mike and Chris, are now 22 years old. When I found out I was carrying twins, I felt as if I’d won the lottery. Actually, by the time they were ready to be born, I felt as if I were carrying the lottery...all in coins...they weighed 8 pounds EACH...carrying twins is HARD work...
But back to when I got the news...I remember, I was lying on the examining table in my doctor’s office, and his nurse had just confirmed the diagnosis with a sonogram. “Woo hoo!” I exclaimed. “That is GREAT news and I am SO excited!” My doctor looked at me, grinned, and said, “Jude, in all the years I’ve been practicing, I have to say, that’s the very first time I’ve heard THAT reaction to news that a woman is carrying twins...”
I don’t have a family history of twins, so I was curious as to how this had come about. I mean, I know how it came about, but with the result that I was carrying two...how had that happened? I had my own theory, which was basically that I had willed it to happen (I very much wanted two more children), but ...I wondered if there were a more logical explanation. I read and read and read...this was 1985, pre-internet...and eventually, I came across an article that said that there was a tribe in Nigeria with the highest fraternal (two egg) twinning rate in the world, and the diet there was heavy in yams...so one theory was that the heavy dose of phytoestrogens in yams causes women to release multiple eggs when ovulating. I was fascinated by this theory, because I love yams, and ate a lot of them in November 1984, coincidentally the month that the boys were conceived...
Over the years, when people have asked me if twins run in the family ("Well, they do NOW!" I quip), I’ve talked about the yams linkage...only to observe their eyes glazing over as I wax eloquent about it, as if I were making it up...which I’m quite capable of doing, by the way, but in this case NOT...and now, today, here, on Yahoo’s Most Popular News stories...confirmation! So check it out...and if you’re thinking you’d like to have twins...go eat some yams!
