Some say there must be something in the water causing a boom in mutiple births. One nursery has eight sets of twins and twin nursery asssistants. MHAIRI MACFARLANE reports.

Staff at Busy Bees are seeing double and say they have a tough job telling some of the children apart since eight sets of twins joined their nursery in New Road, Chingford.

Manager Catalina Harding said: “We had seven sets of twins a couple of years ago and we thought it was pretty exciting then but now it has happened again.

"They are mostly non-identical but they still look very alike.”

Sue Cooper, 33, of Scholars Road, Chingford, has 22-month-old twins at the nursery, Chloe and Jessica, and a three-year-old boy called Sam.

She said: “It is amazing there are so many sets. I think there are more in this area because it is not uncommon to see twins in Chingford high-street.

"Maybe there is something in the water.

“I like having twins, it is lovely, but they are two individual people so I try to treat them as such. I also try to dress them differently when they come to nursery so that the staff don’t get them confused.”

She added: “Watching them interact is amazing, giggling together in their cot.”

Lorraine Walters, 41, from Chingford, has three-year-old non-identical twin boys Louis and Leslie said she has twin brothers and cousins so I thought there was a possibility it could happen to her.

She said: “I was over the moon when I found out because I was a bit older and just wanted two. It is great because they are so close. Sometimes we try to separate them to give them a balance but they always want to be together.”

Mother-of-three Jessica Howard, 21, from Theydon Bois, with twins, Rebecca and Emily, ten months old, said having twins is lovely but can also be demanding.

She said: “The first few weeks were a breeze because they were sleeping lots but then it got more demanding. Also, I can’t go out without getting stopped in the streets, which is nice but also tiring.”

Mother-of-four Laura Walker is chair of the local branch of Twins and Multiple Births Association (TAMBA), which has 70 members, and agreed that having twins or triplets can be quite a handful.

She said: “The idea of having multiple births is lovely but the reality can be really hard. Having two children close in age simply is’t the same.

“That is why a lot of people like to our groups, to seek support and meet others in the same situation. Elsewhere they are a bit of a celebrity, so it is nice to come here and feel normal.”

She added: “There seems to be a lot of twins in the area but I think IVF gas a lot to do with it.”

TWINS FACTBOX: -There are 15 mutiple births for every 1,000 in the UK -About half of all UK twins are born naturally but most triplets are caesarean.

-Identical twins (monozygotic) occur when one egg is fertilised by one sperm and splits into two -Identical twins are always the same sex -Non-identical twins (dizygotic) occur when separate eggs are fertilised by two separate sperm -TAMBA research shows there has been a rise in mutiple births in the last 20 years -The number of triplet births has reduced since 1997 following guidelines that a maximum of two embryos should be replaced in IVF treatments