A U.S. researcher’s argument that twins are a solution for infertile couples who want more than one child was highly criticized by many researchers on Monday who warned of the risks of multiple pregnancies.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Barcelona, Dr. Norbert Gleicher from the Centre for Human Reproduction in New York said the warning currently given to women are fundamentally flawed. He and Dr. David Barad, a fertility doctor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York wrote a paper on this issue, which will be published in the journal Fertility and Sterility.

“For infertile patients, desirous of more than one child, twin deliveries represent a favorable, cost effective and ethical treatment outcome, which in contrast to current medical consensus, should be encouraged. In my opinion patients are being misled and put to unnecessary expense,” Dr. Gleicher said, according to Reuters.

The comments were fiercely disputed by other IVF doctors who said that Dr. Gleicher’s opinions were based on a flawed analysis of the risks of multiple pregnancies to both babies and mothers.

Previous studies have showed the twin pregnancies are dangerous for both the mother and babies. This pregnancy is often associated with risk of premature birth and low birth weight, cerebral palsy, a high chance of miscarriage, high blood pressure, hemorrhage and the potential fatal pregnancy complication pre-eclampsia.

Moreover, up to 60 percent of IVF twins have to be carefully watched after birth, requiring more days in the intensive care unit, as they are six times more likely to die in the first year of life than singletons.

All these factors made experts in the UK and other countries reduce the number of twin births at IVF clinics.

“Couples should be extra cautious about interpreting this advice because it flies in the face of all other published data about the risks of multiple births,” Professor Peter Braude, of King's College, London, said.

In 2006, Prof. Braude chaired a Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority expert panel, which found that more than half of twins are born prematurely. Also each twins costs the NHS 16 times as much as a singleton birth in the five year of life and it is estimated that 126 deaths would have been avoided had all IVF twins born in Britain in 2003 been singleton births.

The panel also found that mothers of twins face high blood pressure and a double risk of death than mothers expecting a single child.

Therefore, the HFEA and the British Fertility Society established as their goals to reduce Britain’s IVF twin rate from 24 percent to 10 percent by 2012.

However, Dr. Gleicher said the risks of twin pregnancies had been overestimated because they were compared with one single baby pregnancy, rather than two a couple would require to get two babies. He further said that two pregnancies meant more attempts at IVF involving extra treatment and anxiety.

“This is an example of how the medical profession, while meaning very well, can get dramatically misguided,” Dr. Gleicher said, according to the BBC.