Twins: Could one twin be 90 day premature,the other full-term (in 1900 Ireland)?

[clayton bradley]

In reply to John 915, I don't believe a stilllbirth would have been baptized Catholic. Only a living child would be baptized. We grew up with Limbo, where such babies went. I think Limbo has now vanished. Some years ago, there was a harrowing story on Radio 4 about rural Ireland in the past and a father with small parcels on the back of his bike, to be buried at the edge of fields. cb

[medpat]

It's 40 weeks from the date of the last period to give a date for a birth.

You do not know if the second child was full term so it's only guesswork how early the first was. If the second was full term the first would be 27 weeks and I don't believe would survive in the era it was born.

Are you trying to put 2 children you have found births for in the same family? If the first was registered straight away but the second after 6 weeks that would alter things a little. Have you got the birth certs?

Are the family claiming a child that was born to someone else and are they saying they were twins?e.g a young sister of one of the couple is pregnant and not married, she has the child and the husband registers it as his and his wife's child. Wife is 6 months pregnant at the time, has child and goes to register her child. They could then say they have twins, one bigger than the other is not unusual.

If it's a baptism of twins one could have been ill or it could be a delayed baptism of one child when mother was expecting another child.

You really have to have the birth certs. to have some idea of what was going on.

[Sinann]

RC Baptisims happened as soon as possible after birth, as clayton bradley said people believed in Limbo than so ther risk was too great to delay.
Mother's more than likely did not attend baptism, as they needed to be churched first.

[ThrelfallYorky]

I spent ages sorting out what looked to be a load of births with improbable gestation periods, to parents (say: John and Mary Smith) in the same town with the same occupation for father, and many on the same street - turned out to be two cousins, sort of interleaved. On the face of it, had there been only a couple of births too close together, I might have taken the whole brood to be from one set of parents...... be warned! It is a wise child that knows all its siblings ( and parents) accurately, relying on old records.

[LizzieW]

A 4lb baby could fit in a shoebox though.  I'd accept 4lbs and maybe 3lbs at a push since her mother was supposedly midwife (haven't found any records which confirm that yet, but the maternal grandmother was).

One of my cousins was born prematurely, from my mother's description I would guess around 28-30 weeks.  She said he was covered all over in dark hair.  My gran, apparently, covered him in some kind of grease and wrapped him in cotton wool and then baby clothes to keep him warm.  He survived and was a Coldstream Guard when he was a young man, I remember him in his uniform with his bearskin, he always seemed so tall to me at the time as I was much younger than him.  He is now 84 and still going strong.

[jim1]

You might want to consider that the parents may have claimed the illegitimate child of a daughter as there own even though it was shortly after giving birth themselves.

[kob3203]

Thanks everybody - it's more a generic question than a specific case. And it's started an interesting and enlightening discussion, which is always good.

The specific case that prompted the question was actually resolved a few years ago (details below*), but because I was looking through all the evidence for the family again in a different way I came at the problem from a different direction (and forgot the original explanation!)

The new direction was this: the 1911 census return http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Cork/Mallow_South_Urban/Barrack_Street/431078/ states 13 children born alive, 8 still living. We have 12 civil birth records and 4 civil death records from IrishGenealogy.ie. So wearemissing one child who died before the 1911 census.
But we also have two baptisms three months apart, only oneof which has a corresponding civil birth record. So I was wondering if maybe the first was a premature twin who died with neither birth nor death being registered? But I overlooked two important points - it's the first baptism that has the matching civil birth, and there's a note on the second baptism that seems to tie it to the first.

For my specific case Occam's razor tells me that the number of children born alive noted on the 1911 census is probably wrong? Or perhaps,less likely, there's a matching civil birth/death for the 13th child that I haven't found because both were mistranscribed into the irishGenealogy database?

*Because the civil birth and baptism for Johanna Browne are on the same date 28 Aug 1908, and the second baptism (Josephine, no associated civil birth) 3 months later on 1st Dec 1908 has a note "Celeb nr birth date approx" the conclusion is that she had an emergency baptism when she was born, probably because she was likely not to survive, and then when she was in the clear she was re-baptized with a slightly different name - here's the thread where that conclusion was drawn
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=418092.msg2838122#msg2838122

P.S. Baptisms before births is something I came across a lot - http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=765425

[hurworth]

A 4lb baby could fit in a shoebox though.  I'd accept 4lbs and maybe 3lbs at a push since her mother was supposedly midwife (haven't found any records which confirm that yet, but the maternal grandmother was).

One of my cousins was born prematurely, from my mother's description I would guess around 28-30 weeks.  She said he was covered all over in dark hair.  My gran, apparently, covered him in some kind of grease and wrapped him in cotton wool and then baby clothes to keep him warm. 

How did she feed him?  These days they feed babies via a naso-gastric tube until 34-36weeks and then start sucking feeds.

Not many babies born at 28-30 weeks have lungs that are sufficiently developed to not require additional support.

[Guy Etchells]

Thanks everybody - it's more a generic question than a specific case. And it's started an interesting and enlightening discussion, which is always good.

The specific case that prompted the question was actually resolved a few years ago (details below*), but because I was looking through all the evidence for the family again in a different way I came at the problem from a different direction (and forgot the original explanation!)

 

The simple answer is yes it is possible.
The babies would have separate amnionic sacs, if one ruptured that baby would be born and the twin could remain until full term.

Even today doctors have conflicting views as to the best way to proceed in these conditions and it is just possible the correct conditions occurred naturally, but much would depend on why the first sac ruptured.

Cheers
Guy