Twins and higher multiples
A different pregnancy from the start.
If you are carrying more than one baby, the single most important piece of information is whether they share a placenta, which is determined by an ultrasound in the first trimester and becomes much harder to establish later.
Twins sharing a placenta need considerably closer monitoring than twins with separate placentas. Both need more visits, more scans and earlier delivery discussions than a single pregnancy.
Routine second-trimester ultrasound is far better at detecting a multiple pregnancy than scanning only when there is a reason: across trials, undetected multiple pregnancy was dramatically less likely with routine scanning (relative risk 0.05).
Ask for the word"Are these babies dichorionic or monochorionic, and when was that established?" If nobody can tell you, ask for it to be documented from the earliest scan available.
Where this comes from:
141. Kaelin Agten A, Xia J, Servante JA, Thornton JG, Jones NW. Routine ultrasound for fetal assessment before 24 weeks' gestation. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2021;(8):CD014698.
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