Triplet births become 20 times more costly in US

Mothers in US who give birth to twins or triplets face up to 20 per cent more medical costs than those who conceive single children, a new study has found.
Investigators analysed and compared the cost of multiple versus single-birth pregnancies and found that pregnancies with delivery of twins cost about five times more than singletons, and pregnancies with delivery of triplets or more cost nearly 20 times as much.
Researchers, who published their findings in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, call for strategies to reduce this burden.
Multiple pregnancies are increasing worldwide in parallel with increased use of reproductive technologies such as ovulation induction and in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 3 per cent of all infants born in the US in 2010 were multiple deliveries, researchers said.
The twin birth rate was 33 per 1,000 total births, and the rate of triplets and more was 1.4 per 1,000 births.

The study population included all women aged 19-45 years who delivered at least one live born infant between January 2005 and September 2010.
Investigators identified 437,924 eligible delivery events during the study period. Of these, about 97 per cent (424,880) were singletons, 2.85 per cent (12,482) were twins, and 0.13 per cent(562) were triplets or more.

For mothers, the cost included medical expenses during the 27 weeks before and up to 30 days after the delivery date.
For infants, costs contained all medical expenses up to their first birthday. This is the first study taking into account a comprehensive assessment of the incremental cost associated with multiple pregnancies by estimating all-cause medical expenses over this time-frame.
"By taking a broad approach, we have shown that medical expenses attributable to mothers and infants varied according to birth multiplicity," said lead investigator Dongmu Zhang.
"For singleton pregnancy, maternal expenses accounted for about 60 per cent of overall cost. Whereas for twins or higher-order multiple births, expenses for infant care accounted for about 70 per cent and 85 per cent of total expenses, respectively," said Zhang.

The adjusted total all-cause health-care cost was around USD 21,000 per delivery with singletons, USD 105,000 with twins, and over USD 400,000 with triplets or more.