Higher Order Multiples
High orders of multiple births (three or more offspring in one birth) may result in a combination of fraternal (genetically different) and identical (genetically identical) siblings. The latter are also called super twins. For example, a set of quadruplets may consist of two sets of identical twins; in such a case each child has one identical and two fraternal siblings. This happens when multiple eggs are fertilized and one or more these subsequently divides into two fetuses. By analogy with monozygotic and dizygotic twins, such a combination is called dizygotic triplets. The Kübler triplets (see Elisabeth Kübler-Ross) were of this type.
Identical triplets or quadruplets are very rare and result when the original fertilized egg splits and then one of the resultant cells splits again (for triplets) or, even more rarely, a further split occurs (for quadruplets). Alternatively the original fertilized egg can split twice (to produce four embryos) and all four may survive, to produce identical quadruplets, or one of the embryos may not survive and result in triplets.
Read more about this topic: Multiple Birth
Famous quotes containing the words higher, order and/or multiples:
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)
“Our system is the height of absurdity, since we treat the culprit both as a child, so as to have the right to punish him, and as an adult, in order to deny him consolation.”
—Claude Lévi-Strauss (b. 1908)
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—Pamela Patrick Novotny (20th century)