Welcome to our CaringBridge site. We've created it to keep friends and family updated on our journey with our twins. We appreciate your words of hope and encouragement during this time when it matters most. Any donations are also greatly appreciated for medical bills. However prayers are what we need most at this time!
At 16 weeks pregnant. I was diagnosed with a condition known as twin to twin transfusion syndrome
- Twin to twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS) is a disease of the placenta that affects identical twin pregnancies who share a common monochorionic placenta.
- The shared placenta contains abnormal blood vessels, which connect the umbilical cords and circulations of the twins. It is shared unequally by the twins, and one twin may have a share too small to provide the necessary nutrients to normally or even survive.
- Depending on the number, type and direction of the connecting vessels, blood can be transfused disproportionately from one twin (the donor) to the other twin (the recipient)
- The transfusion causes the donor twin to have decreased blood volume. This in turn leads to slower than normal growth than its co-twin, and poor urinary output causing little to no amniotic fluid or oligohydramnios (the source of most of the amniotic fluid is urine from the baby).
- The recipient twin becomes overloaded with blood. This excess blood puts a strain on this baby’s heart to the point that it may develop heart failure (
http://www.tttsfoundation.org/medical_professionals/what_is_ttts.php#), and also causes this baby to have too much amniotic fluid (polyhydramnios) from a greater than normal production of urine.
Chronic TTTS describes those cases that appear early in pregnancy (12-26 weeks’ gestation). These cases are the most serious because the babies (
http://www.tttsfoundation.org/medical_professionals/what_is_ttts.php#) are immature and cannot be delivered. In addition, the twins will have a longer time during their development in the womb to be affected by the TTTS abnormalities. Without treatment, most of these babies would not survive and of the survivors, most would have handicaps or birth defects.
- The events in pregnancy that lead to TTTS - the timing of the twinning event, the number and type of connecting vessels, and the way the placenta is shared by the twins are all random events that have no primary prevention, is not hereditary or genetic, nor is it caused by anything the parents did or did not do. TTTS can happen to anyone.
- TTTS foundation
