Of the 106,483 women in Baden-Württemberg who gave birth in 2020, 1,891 women gave birth to twins. The share of twin births in all births has almost doubled since 1980 to 1.8%. According to the State Statistical Office, twins were born in every 56th birth last year.
24 women residing in Baden-Württemberg even got triplets in 2020. This means that triplets were born in roughly every 4,400th birth. In contrast to 2019, quadruplets were not born in the southwest in the past year. The highest number of quadruplets since 1980 was in Baden-Württemberg in 1987 and 1989 (five each). Quintuplets have been born in six years since 1980, most recently in 1999.
In 2020, the birth of twin brothers was slightly more common than that of twin sisters (601 versus 584). The largest group of twin births, however, were the births with a boy and a girl (706). With the exception of 2016, the birth of “couples” was the most frequent occurrence in all years since 2001. In contrast, it was still completely different in the 1980s. Back then, twin births with a boy and a girl were the least common.1
Last year, 636 of the women who gave birth to twins were 35 years of age or older. This means that with the “late mothers” 2.3% of the births and thus every 44th birth were twin births. For women under the age of 35, this proportion was only 1.6%; only every 62nd birth was a twin birth.
The fact that older mothers have more than average number of twins is one of the reasons for the increase in multiple births in recent decades. The proportion of children born to mothers aged 35 or later has increased steadily. The proportion of “later mothers” rose from 17% in 2000 to just under 27% recently. The main reason for the increase in multiple births, however, is likely to be modern reproductive medicine.
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