Multiples: More of Everything

Comprised of Volume One: Prenatal & Birth and Volume Two: Postpartum & Breastfeeding, this two-part series follows four couples awaiting, delivering, and then coping during their first year with twins or triplets. Viewers tag along for doctor appointments, ultrasounds, supervised hospital bed rest during pregnancy, the deliveries, and—for one couple—a few weeks in Neonatal Intensive Care (NICU), after which the families are revisited at various points during their first year at home. Parents talk about the physical and emotional toll of high-risk pregnancy, self-image issues, helping siblings adjust, and effects on their personal relationships. A voiceover narrator explains how different combinations of fraternal and identical twins and triplets develop, details the risks of multiple births, and offers tips for doctors' visits and nutrition during pregnancy. Three of the mothers have C-section deliveries (two in emergency situations), while the fourth delivers vaginally after working with hospital personnel to find a compromise between a drug-free, natural childbirth and the need to be ready for possible complications. The parents effectively communicate their feelings with each other, ask questions of medical personnel, and face challenges with good humor, while talking about negotiating schedules, not having time together (or being too tired to enjoy it), and dealing with postpartum depression, concluding with a home consultation between a mom and a lactation consultant who teaches her how to simultaneously breastfeed her twins. A positive, reassuring, and informative guide, Multiples: More of Everything is highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (M. Puffer-Rothenberg)