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October 6, 1999 DES MOINES, Iowa--The world is expecting to reach a population of more than 6 billion sometime during October this year. The United Nations has designated Oct. 12 the "Day of Six Billion." In many countries the birth rate is increasing, but in the United States, the birth rate is dropping as fewer children are being born. Although population growth in the United States has slowed, some birth statistics are on the rise. Multiple birth rates in the United States have reached an all-time high and show little sign of decreasing. In Iowa, information on births is gathered by each county, which then sends the information to the state Center for Health Statistics. Iowa has statistics for many different categories of women and child birth, including age of mother, deaths resulting from child birth and the marriage status of a mother. These statistics also include the number and type of multiple births. Iowa is fairly average among the states in the increase of multiple births. In 1988, there were 816 twins born, 24 triplets and no sets of quadruplets. Last year, there were 102 triplets and 24 quadruplets born in the state. Although these statistics are fairly average in the United States, Iowa has set a record for multiple births. In 1997, the first set of live septuplets were born to Bobbi and Kenny McCaughey from Carlisle, Iowa. The birth of seven children at once is extreme on the human body. "No one wants to repeat the McCaughey's feat," said Brad Hart, business manager for Des Moines Perinatal Center. He added that the risk of multiple births has not deterred people from using fertility treatments. "The No. 1 overwhelming reason [for the increase of multiple births] is the increase of fertility treatments," Hart said. Use of such treatments is increasing, Hart said, as many more women are delaying having children. As women age, the chances of natural pregnancies decline. With this decline, Hart said, comes an increase of the use of fertility treatments. "[Fertility treatments] dramatically increase the odds [of multiples]," Hart said. "You get a higher risk of multiples with artificial insemination." Artificial insemination is the instrumental introduction of semen into a woman's body in order to conceive. Hart said another type of fertilization that increases the likelihood of multiple births is in vitro fertilization, which is the fertilization of an ovum outside of the body. A woman is given hormone therapy to cause a number of ova to mature at the same time. The eggs are then mixed with sperm and incubated in a culture medium until a blastocyst, or the early stage of an embryo, has formed. The blastocyst is then implanted in the woman's uterus, and the pregnancy continues normally. Multiple births are not a common occurrence in human pregnancies. Hart said he could only recall two sets of naturally occurring quadruplets in the United States. But in 1998 alone, there were 24 quadruplets born in Iowa, a phenomenal increase. For the nation, the most recent statistics are for 1997 and are released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For twins, there was a national increase of 3 percent in the year, or 104,137 individual babies born. The number of triplet births rose 16 percent to 6,148. There is some difference between Iowa's numbers and national averages. In Iowa that year there were 1,134 twins born and a 12.3 percent increase. For triplets the same year, there was a 17.9 percent decrease with 69 triplets born. At Des Moines' Mid-Iowa Fertility in 1996, which is the most recent data available, there were 19 women under the age of 35 who had pregnancies and nine of them had multiple births. For women between 35 and 39, there were six pregnancies, four of which had multiple births. Hart said this was very typical for women who participate in fertilization treatments. The most common type of these multiples, he said, was twins. Michael Dare a statistic research analyst in the Iowa Department of Public Health, helps with the data on vital statistics and answers questions concerning the data. "Since the septuplet birth, there's been a great deal amount of interest [on multiple births in Iowa]," Dare said. "I think since we've got stuff on the Internet, it's slowed down some." Numbers about births in Iowa can be found following links from www.state.ia.us. But those numbers do not show the reasons behind the increases. This increase in fertilizations and women delaying childbearing has a direct link to today's American lifestyle, Hart said. "Even when women do get married at an early age, they are delaying child bearing for their career," Hart said. Other factors include the availability of fertility treatment and the prominence of sexually transmitted diseases hampering the ability to conceive naturally, Hart said.
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