Lisa Marie Presley Gives Birth to Fraternal Twins

On Tuesday, October 7, Lisa Marie Presley gave birth to twin girls. The only child of music icon, Elvis Presley, has two teenage children from another marriage and these are her first babies with music producer husband, Michael Lockwood.

The girls were born to the 40-year-old mother by Caesarian section and weighed 5 lbs, 15 oz. and 5 lbs. 2 ozs and are reportedly doing very well. Twins run in the Presley family. Elvis was a twin and her mother, Priscilla Presley, has younger brothers who are twins.

Lisa Presley’s daughters are fraternal or dizygotic twins. That means they are non identical and are from two ova (eggs) fertilized by two separate sperm at the same time. The mother must release two eggs for a possibility of fraternal twins. They implant in the uterus separately and grow like siblings together.

Dizygotic twins occur more commonly in mothers over the age of 35 and with the advent of fertility treatments the rate has exploded. Fertility treatments stimulate the uterus to produce many more eggs through each cycle. Triplet births have also increased due to fertility treatments.

Monozygotic twins, also known as identical twins, occur when a single egg is fertilized and then divides into two separate embryos. Depending upon when the split occurs, each embryo will either share a placenta or develop their own within the womb. These twins are nearly identical and are always the same sex.

The likelihood of a single fertilization resulting in a monozygotic twin is an uncommon and random event and is not a hereditary trait.