PARENTS OF twins are adamant that people who have had only single babies "just don't get" what it's like to have two at the same time. So hearing about first-hand experience of twins is invaluable.
The Irish Multiple Birth Association (IMBA), which is run by volunteers, holds information meetings and is in the process of setting up local twin clubs. There's already one in Naas, Co Kildare, and in Galway, with others planned for north and south Dublin from the autumn.
"This time last year I would love to have gone along to such a group and met other expectant parents," says Siobhan Cullen, the mother of 10-month-old twins Albha and Caoimhe, as well as Donnacha who is two and a half.
"I called the IMBA when I was pregnant as it was the only place I could find information in an Irish context. Everybody's experience is different so it's helpful to talk to other mothers who have been through it, rather than get just one perspective."
Getting twins into a routine is key, she says. But that's easier said than done with two very different babies. It took her and her husband, Sylvester, four or five months before they got them into a routine.
Now she is a committee member of the IMBA, which is based in Carmichael House, Dublin 7. Most of the callers to its helpline are people expecting twins, who have queries about practical issues such as breastfeeding, co-sleeping, the best buggy, what financial support is available when you're having to buy two of many things.
Thanks to the tireless campaigning of Mairead Hilliard in the 1990s, the child allowance for each twin is 150 per cent of the standard rate.
As a mother of twin girls, who are now 25, "I found out triplets had been getting double payments since 1965," she explains and she thought it unfair there was nothing extra for twins. She wrote to newspapers, encouraged people to lobby their TDs, and badgered a succession of government ministers, until increased payments were announced in the budget speech of December 1997.
Hilliard also set up the first support group, Parents of Twins Ireland, and still runs a helpline today from her home in Lucan, Co Dublin.
Social welfare grants of €635 are also paid at the birth of twins, at age four and again at age 12.
The number of twin births in the Republic is rising, as women increasingly delay motherhood, and fertility treatment becomes more widespread.
Some 937 sets of twins were born live in the Republic in 2005, along with 13 sets of triplets and one set of quadruplets, according to the Central Statistics Office. This is equivalent to a rate of 15.5 sets of twins born live per 1,000 pregnancies, compared to 10.5 in 1985.
"I was in Blanchardstown Shopping Centre the other day and I walked past seven sets of twins in about 15 minutes," says Sarah Harris, public relations officer for IMBA and the mother of twins, Elle and Annaleigh, who turned one last Saturday, as well as three-year-old Jodi.
Living in Swords, she is helping to set up the north Dublin twin group which is due to start in the autumn but does not have a venue yet. The south Dublin group will have its first meeting in Marley Grange Parish Centre on October 1st.
The association will be guided by what members want, but as well as offering social contact, Harris says they are hoping to invite professionals to speak on multiple birth topics such as nutrition, education, psychological development, etc.
"Our website is being revamped," she adds, "our services expanded and our events and clubs will be a real benefit to parents and their children in the years ahead."
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