The Science of Vanishing Twin Syndrome | Sci Guys Podcast

Sometimes twins can battle it out while in the womb, resulting in one of them just... disappearing. This is vanishing twin syndrome, and it's far more common than you may first think.
Grab our merch: normalcitizen.store/collectio...
Support the podcast on Patreon: / sciguys
WATCH EVERY EPISODE:
bit.ly/2z3ifN0
SUBSCRIBE TO SCI GUYS
Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2TAPC3h
Spotify: spoti.fi/2H91rZu
KZbin: bit.ly/2Z7bWTk
JOIN OUR DISCORD
/ discord
FOLLOW THE PODCAST
Twitter: / sciguyspod
Instagram: / sciguyspod
FaceBook: / sciguyspod
References & Further Reading
Twins & Pregnancy
www.genome.gov/genetics-gloss...
www.twins.org.au/twins-and-fa...
www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/finding-...
www.nhs.uk/conditions/miscarr...
Vanishing Twins
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NB....
time.com/4091210/chimera-twins/
www.livescience.com/teens-twi...
Gestational Sac
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NB...
Follow the SCI GUYS
@notcorry / @jampkin / @lukecutforth

[@SciGuys]

Do you have any siblings?

[@reaganbarber5921]

I have three sisters

[@Meeko4eve39]

An older brother, yeah.

[@junecasadilla]

I have two siblings

[@carous3lcos]

Sadly

[@charliev4156]

Nope, I’m an only child

[@carous3lcos]

16:36 I was friends with identical twins back in high school, and they were literally identical - except one of them had really severe acne. It was deadass the only way to tell them apart if you didn’t know them (they had different mannerisms and smiles and other things you’d notice if you knew them), and everyone would refer to the one without acne as the better looking twin, which I imagine was really rough for the other one. Now, at 20, the one who had severe acne has clear skin, and the one who didn’t have acne now does. Life uno reversed on them

[@ratk1ng.0]

You guys should get mamma dr jones on your podcast! That would be a really cool and really interesting collaboration but shes an obgyn so she could probably add some perspective to this :)

[@fifinoir]

Plus she’s a mother to twins as well.

[@ratk1ng.0]

@@fifinoir Dude true I forgot but yeah

[@charliev4156]

3:40 I GOT SO EXCITED THAT XO WAS MENTIONED CAUSE I HAVE THAT. I have turner’s syndrome which is the name for having XO chromosomes

[@el______]

i was the surviving twin! my mum lost my twin at 20 weeks - made it extra special when i delivered a set of twins on my birthday as a student midwife

[@deadlymelody27]

I do love that Luke always brings in the emotional element to the show. I think often with medicine and especially pregnancy people forget of the emotional toll any kind of loss can have and its nice that Luke really understands and brings that point across. And he does in all videos, brings the empathy that can be lacking in science and medicine. But its also good to have a balance of factual and less emotional points of view.

[@menace4607]

Both me and me and my girlfriend were vanishing twins, we're also both trans. When I was born I was born 3 weeks late with 4 teeth and a full THICK head of hair, and I was really long, however my girlfriend was born prematurely

[@kimberlielightle4390]

I think its fascinating that you mention your trans. I'm trans and had a good conversation with my dad. He had a thought that I could be trans because maybe I could of been a vanishing twin. Which is why I'm watching this video.

[@alphabettiispaghetti5380]

I went to school with quadruplets (IVF babies). There were 3 boys and 1 girl, and 2 of the boys were identical but the other boy (and the girl) were fraternal.

[@addisongalbreath4115]

I'm actually an identical twin! It's interesting to say the least. I didn't really know anything about identical twins (even though I am one) so thanks for this episode!

[@roksolida36]

bet ya sister named allison

[@roksolida36]

or maddison

[@pokemonfanthings4444]

I recall that story about how a woman was accused of stealing her baby because later on in life doctors discovered she was not the genetically parent of the child. What happened is that her child had the DNA from an absorpwd twin. I gotta look into it more

[@JennaGetsCreative]

You mentioned that "advanced maternal age" sounds like an odd term. Here in Canada it's called "geriatric pregnancy." 💀 Edit- You mentioned power dynamics not really being there in identical twins. My step sisters are identical triplets and there is absolutely a heirarchy. My mom (their step mom, her opinion not a known fact) figures they were identical twins and some point and then one split again, and it's the two that split later who are close/friendlier/more equal.

[@rissabiagi1570]

So weird …I was just telling someone the other day that I was a surviving twin of this condition!!!

[@Sami-zr3hy]

My brothers are identical twins and sometimes when I look at them I think what if they didn’t split, I’d have a brother who looks exactly like them, probably would have the same name as one of them but wouldn’t be them at all and it freaks me out lol I wonder how similar he’d be to my brothers haha

[@natasham4184]

This was my topic submission! Can't wait to listen and learn more about this, which I've always found very interesting. (And no, I don't have siblings... maybe I absorbed them all.)

[@josiahsbizarreadventures]

I’m a twin, but my best twin story is about two friends of mine who are so identical that their parents can’t even tell them apart sometimes. One of them, Logan, is in the youth theatre group with me at our community theatre. The two of them were double cast as Mike Teevee in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory back in January. The aforementioned youth theatre group had our lock-in event on one of the nights that Logan was supposed to be performing. They switched that night so that Logan could go to the lock-in without telling anyone other than their parents. Even their director and stage manager didn’t know. I don’t think their director knows even now. One of my friends helped with costumes for that show and didn’t even know there were two of them until she heard that story.

[@beyedoc]

Fun fact: Advanced maternal age is better than its precursor, geriatric pregnancy! As a woman who's a doctor in her mid 30s, AME "label" doesn't bother me one bit because I understand constantly evaluating and weighing risk factors in patients, and often age is one of them.

[@annapr]

I do have one actual brother and I am the "surviving" twin to another potential sibling that vanished after 13 weeks of pregnancy - I did get one kidney of that twin though, as an actual full organ (had it removed when I was 8 months old). Thanks for breaking down all this info - it kinda helps seeing that topic in a more flat out simple way, instead of overthinking the impact VTS might have! I‘m 26 and have a huge scar on my side/back from the heminephrectomy (they weren’t able to remove the full third kidney back then).

[@thiel_spencer]

I'm the youngest child (youngest boy with a brother and sister) and therefore the most statically likely to be gay of my siblings. Thankfully the odds were in my favor because I am, in fact, part of the alphabet mafia.

[@taiyouscandalous1175]

that's interesting! I'm also the youngest of 3 siblings. both my sisters are cishet but I'm amab genderfluid and even tho I'm mostly into women, I'm a bit flexible on that

[@vynneve]

Prenatal paternity tests used to be very high risk and therefore were not even allowed to be done under the NHS (and i assume same thing with canada, where I am), but now you can do a paternity tests 9+ weeks into the pregnancy with only the **mother's** blood! It's amazing honestly. At that point the mother's blood contains enough of the fetuses that you can just compare it to the potential father's that way.

[@deadlymelody27]

On Parks and Recreation they describe having triplets because of advanced maternal age as a "going out of business sale" 🤣

[@peperlake9502]

Just found you guys last night, great videos!

[@yohanrives3752]

Fascinating topic, thanks for covering it

[@brenna5200]

at 44:22 - so glad I decided to eat while watching this podcast episode you really never know where an episode of sci guys is going to go

[@rebelkallus]

Oh my god I'm catching up on any of your episodes I didnt get around to yet (this is my fave podcast so that's not many haha) and I only just realised this is the episode you guys read out my name at the end and said it was a fantastic name lmao thanks I chose it myself :)

[@lilydelapena6143]

“wonderful” is a word i would have never thought to ascribe to vomiting

[@javenjem867]

I have 6 siblings. One full, one half on my mother's side, two half on my father's side, and two in-law.

[@Need4Needle]

you recently started following my study schedule for gyn/ob exam

[@davegrohlthecinnamonroll4495]

This is what happened to my mum with me!! She did IVF

[@BeanieGaebie]

YES THANK YOU I never know what the f people are looking at in their early ultrasounds like, bruh that is pure fuzz??🤣

[@maddyl6988]

I imagine someone who's a chimera would also have a thymus that was a chimera (i.e. the cells in the thymus which present self-antigens to maturing T cells would be a mixture of cells from each twin)

[@kayleigh1991]

This is so weird. I was reading up about this yesterday.

[@louisconnaire9245]

Haven't watched the video yet but I'm the surviving twin from a vanishing twin syndrome incident 😶 my mother thinks that's why I'm trans lmao. She lost my twin at 17 weeks.

[@louisconnaire9245]

My mother did miscarry btw. She woke up in a bed full of blood from the loss and thought she had lost both babies, rushed to the hospital, and it was just the other that had been lost. Commenting this as you guys are discussing miscarriages.

[@cathybaldock]

Even if the twin resorbtion/ miscarriage occurs in the first trimester, it can take a huge toll on the survivor, mostly psychological, but also physical, decreased resiliency etc. Its like a deep imprint or template that continues to affect the system after birth, almost like a past lifetime might affect this lifetime. I know, I'm going a bit beyond the purely scientific....

[@ESLhills]

When I was a little girl, I always asked my mother about my twin and what she did with it. It would upset her because I was insistent. I had/have a sense of loneliness that I attribute to that. I found out later that my mom bled profusely at about 3 months; the doctor told my mother she was miscarrying and to go home and go to bed? We never put it together until later. Many years ago there was an article in Reader's Digest called, "The Case of the Vanishing Twin." That explained it.

[@jaybirdvlogs7279]

I agree with luke, I feel like it should be classesd as a as kind of miscarriage cos like, you’re loosing a baby and that must be hard for some people, especially if it happens later in the pregnancy. Idk

[@datfatrat7135]

yes

[@danitotd]

JJajajjajajaja the last joke KILLED ME 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@saskiahorton]

Are you guys releasing any new hoodies anytime soon?

[@pokemonfanthings4444]

I had a fibroid that was about 6 centimeters long and 3 centimeters wide. It caused an ovarian tortion and they removed it. The doctor said it had hair and a tiny tooth (or teeth) on it. I didn’t get to look at it in-person :( they had to break it into pieces to remove it. I didn’t think about how gross this is until now. Btw I was 21 when this happened. They thought it was a cyst, since I have PCOS. You never know. Also I asked them to remove the ovary since they said a torsion might happen again due to cysts which I also have but they didn’t let me. But that’s another boring story. Btw This was in 2015

[@mikhailavandermerwe5636]

Isn't a twin absorption something like a Disney merger/acquisition? The companies they absorb become them in a way. You're not going to be seeing Fox say that they are an independent company anymore. So the genes of the absorbed twin kind of become the surviving twin. Wouldn't you say? Good episode. I love how this podcast challenges me to think more critically of things that present themselves to me. Keep it up, SciGuys!

[@finnxrobbie]

I was an only child for 14 years and now I have a two year old brother. (he's very lovely and I don't have to babysitt so I can just enjoy his presence and give him away if he me)

[@insu_na]

In the case with the man with the paternity test with his brother's DNA... How can we be sure that it's his brother's DNA? I'm guessing they ran the DNA test against saliva, but how are we sure that the DNA sampled from that is the definitive DNA? What about the DNA in his brain: Is it uniform or could that be mixed/striped too? Very strange situation. Once more goes to show how little influence DNA has on identity

[@MG-hz7wi]

My grandmother was one of 16 children, three pairs of which were identical twins. What would the chances be that one woman have three sets of identical twins? By the way, my grandmother was one of the identical twins

[@PerfectProtagonist]

15:59

[@whydoineedtohaveahandle]

I had a twin in the womb but I'm an only child! I'm not sure if the other one got absorbed of if it died but anyway

[@rissabiagi1570]

I wonder if Chorionic Villus Sampling (CVS) can also detect twin sexes. I knew the sex of my (single) child at 11 weeks.

[@rissabiagi1570]

I have four younger siblings and two older half siblings.

[@fifinoir]

50:18 Okay am I missing something with the maths here? How does 1 in 500000 result in only 14 people worldwide with the condition? I thought the world population was 7-8 billion not million. Genuinely not sure if I’m having a brain fart or if there’s a mistake somewhere in the description/maths.

[@stephanie5293]

Yes i have sibling plural

[@lucyfer2318]

I have a half brother... hell yeah.

[@JuanPablodelaTorre]

Three identical twins are _thrwins._

[@VioletE420]

Or just thrins. 'two' > 'twins' 'three' > 'thrins'

[@JuanPablodelaTorre]

@@VioletE420 That would be if we used reason and logic. I guess _thrwins_ just sounds self explanatory.

[@sadmermaid]

Weird only child.

[@Anastasyamix]

Slow down 😂 you speak in accelerated x2 way. Articulate please for non native English speakers

[@SciGuys]

Play it on 0.5x speed