Preparing a Twin Placenta

February 24, 2013

Here are the pictures I took of a gorgeous twin placenta I encapsulated.  They are posted with permission from Jenny, the mama who birthed it.  The babies were determined prenatally to be mono-chorionic, di-amniotic twins, which is the most common type of identical twins.  This means that the original zygote started the process of creating a single placenta, and then split so each of the twins creates a separate amniotic sac.  Twins who divide sooner can have separate placentas and those who divide later can share an amniotic sac or even a forked umbilical cord!

Here you can see the chorionic membrane, the outer of the two membrane layers, which is considered part of the placenta.  Because Oscar and Atticus were mono-chorionic, this membrane surrounded both of them and their separate amniotic sacs.  Note the two cords curled up inside: it’s common for the first baby out to have a single clamp on the cord, and the second baby to have two clamps.

This is the amniotic membrane, or rather, the septum formed by both amniotic membranes pressing together.  Because they are di-amniotic, Oscar and Atticus each had his own amniotic sac.  So these membranes were between them until they were born, though many twins have been seen on ultrasound touching and interacting with one another through the membranes.

After I have removed the membranes, we can see the umbilical cords and their separate vascular trees.  Sometimes the vessels will interconnect and the babies share blood.

After I removed the cords, drained and rinsed.  It’s ready for steaming!  You can still see the diagonal line where the division was.

This is the (rinsed-clean) maternal side of the placenta, where it attached to the uterus.  From the maternal side, looks like a (large) singleton placenta!  It’s not uncommon for two placentas to grow together, but because they were mono-chorionic, these guys always shared their placenta.

Thank you for letting me share, Jenny!

Tags: Placenta

Author Bio: Jasper Moon, CPM LMT (they/ them)

Perinatal care specialist. Parent of two. Hosted three fetuses: my big kid, a surrogacy in the middle, and my little kid. Vegan; drinks a lot of tea. Board game (and general) geek. Goat hugger extraordinaire.

Read more about Jasper here.