Suspicious- Twin Facts

The leisurely hours of mine are sometimes watch television to know some mysterious facts or somethings which are unusual. I also watch food and travel shows but the mystery or any suspicious facts always lure me. Very recently I came across one program which showed an interesting fact about twin birth. The twin birth is very exciting, even one of my colleague came back from a long maternity leave. She gave birth to two twin boys and gone for extended leave as it is difficult to manage a full time job with two small babies! We celebrated her return to department and the soon I watched this program on TV. How sweet! I thought 🙂

The program is about a village, Kodinhi, in Kerala’s Malappuram district. This village has the largest number of twins in the country.  According to estimates, there are at least 400 pairs of twins in the village that has a population of 2000 families.

The fact was discovered very unusually by two girl twins who were studying in a school in that village. Out of curiosity the twins counted the no of twins present in their class and they found it was four pairs of twins studying in their class alone. The minds grew suspiciousness and searched in entire school to find out more number of twins present in that school alone. The fun started and the fact was brought to the notice of the teachers. Slowly it was discovered that the village has got unusual number of twins and this happened in 2008. The news was spread and the village got international attention. Research were carried out to find out several facts. One of them is that the number of twins are increasing year by year.While official estimates in 2008 pegged the number of twins in the village to 280 pairs, the number has only increased in the years that followed to observe now 400 pairs of twins! While the national average of twin births is not more than 9 in 1000 births, in Kodinhi, the number is as high as 45 in 1000 births.

Another fact that bucks the trend is that even women from Kodinhi who are married off to faraway places have exceptionally high rates of twin births.

This phenomenon of a large number of twin births is not unique to Kodinhi, and has also been observed in the town of Igbo-Ora in Nigeria. In Igbo-Ora, research has suggested that the multiple births could be related to the eating habits of the women in the region. Though no direct correlation between dietary intake and twin births has been observed, a research study carried out at the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital has suggested that a chemical found in the Igbo-Ora women and the peelings of a widely consumed tuber could account for the high level of multiple births. In the case of Kodinhi, however, no such relationship has been observed, as the residents’ dietary patterns are not known to be significantly different from the rest of Kerala.

A similar phenomenon of a large number of twin births within a small isolated community has been observed in Cândido Godói, Brazil.

Now, this fact makes most of us very curious. What can be the reason that these three places gets twins during birth? And the people are not rich enough to go for artificial processes to have babies of their choices. Several studies were made but none could find out the real fact and the matter remained suspicious to common people and to scientists.While many say that it is genetic, there are also speculations that a particular element in the air or water in the village could be the cause of this phenomenon. But, the phenomenon is yet to get a scientific explanation.

A great news is about the tennis superstar Roger Federer- my hero, again became father of twins. Now he has four babies- one pair of girl and another pair of boy. “A God- gifted man”, my husband said upon hearing the news. I am not sure how he got the babies- naturally or artificially, but he is the luckiest! Some fortunate factors about others make us suspicious about “fate”- what is it actually!!
Suspicious