Nigerias land of twins has even the experts baffled!

A farming community in southwest Nigeria has been named the The Land of Twins because almost all the babies born here are twins.

New Delhi, Nov 15 : A farming community in southwest Nigeria has been named the 'The Land of Twins' because almost all the babies born here are twins.

And, this even has the experts baffled.

Community leader Olayide Akinyemi, a 71-year-old father of 12, reveals that for generations, people in Igbo-Ora had been welcoming twins and not single children into the family.

"There is hardly a family here without a set of twins. My father had 10 sets, while I had three sets," China Daily quoted him, as saying.

Overall, almost 5 percent of all Yoruba births produce twins, a Belgian study has now found. The figure is just around 1.2 percent for Western Europe and 0.8 percent for Japan.

They believe that one of the reasons may be yam consumption in West Africa.

Yams contain a natural hormone phytoestrogen which may stimulate the ovaries to produce an egg from each side.

However, while some of Igbo-Ora's residents believe that this might be a good theory, others are not so sure.

"We eat a lot of okro leaf or Ilasa soup. We also consume a lot of agida (yam). This diet influences multiple births," Akinyemi said.

"The real cause of the phenomenon has not been medically found," said Akin Odukogbe, a senior consultant gynaecologist with the University Teaching Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan, the nearest big town.

ANI