In the world I could not repeat or break this record. The advantage of the peasant woman was her genetics, which made it possible to produce children in 27 births. Vasilyeva gave birth to twins 16 times (another world record), triplets and four quadruplets were born seven times. Unfortunately, only 67 children survived to conscious age.

It is worth noting that this record is not the final point for Fedor Vasiliev himself. The peasant was married twice. In his first marriage, he gave birth to 20 more children. As a result, there were 87 children in the large family. This fact was appreciated even by Catherine the Great, and information about such a large offspring was included in the book “Additions to the Acts of Emperor Peter the Great.”

Historians are still arguing about the order of birth of the children of the peasant Vasilyev. However, facts gleaned from house books and issues of the Vedomosti newspaper indicate the excessive fertility of the second wife.

The largest families of our time

If the record of the peasant Vasilyeva to this day has not been broken by a single woman, Fyodor Vasilyev himself was ahead of the modern Indian Zion Chan (Zion Khan) with a noticeable advantage. The polygamist will give birth to 94 children.

The Indian man was able to conceive so many children thanks to his wives - Zion Chan has 39 of them. The huge family lives in a multi-storey building. It is also inhabited by the wives of the sons and grandchildren of the hero father. According to the most conservative estimates, about 180 people live in the house.

According to the father of the family, they begin to prepare for dinner in their house before breakfast. As a rule, wives take part in cooking. To feed so many people, more than a dozen chickens and several carts of vegetables are spent on one meal.

In those countries where it is prohibited, records are distinguished by “modesty”. The closest person to Vasiliev's record was a resident of Chile, Leontina Albina. She managed to give birth to 55 children and was also included in the Book of Records.

Modern Russia has its own heroes of childbirth. Today they are Elena and Alexander Shishkin. The family (a branch of Christianity where abortion is strictly prohibited) produced 20 children. Nineteen of them still live with their parents, and the eldest son already has his own family and three children.

Active supporters of Christianity Bob and Michelle Duggar did not think about having a large family. Initially, their plans were to give life to two or three children. However, after the first baby and subsequent contraception, the woman had a miscarriage, which almost cost her life. After this, the husband and wife decided not to interfere with “God’s plans” and surrendered to the will of fate. As a result, they became one of the largest families in America, giving birth to and raising 19 children. There could have been more babies, but three of Michelle's births ended in the death of the babies.

The happiness of becoming parents does not come easily to everyone at will. Long gone are the days when people could only pray for the appearance of their babies, hoping for luck. Modern medicine offers childless couples many methods for realizing their cherished dreams, which sometimes leads to such unexpected results as multiple pregnancies.

Interesting pages of history

It is known for certain that in 1946, a Brazilian woman gave birth to ten offspring, born from one mother. History is silent about whether the kids were able to adapt to the world around them. Around the same time, similar numbers of births were recorded in Spain and China. Similarly, little is known about their further fate.

A little more detail can be found about the eight twins of an American citizen, each of whom survived. Another American woman also set an unofficial record for childbearing: in 1998, she had eight children at once, and seven were not only saved from death, but also subsequently raised.

The feat of becoming parents of many children

What is special about pregnancy with several fetuses at once? The reasons that absolutely lead to multiple pregnancies are not always amenable to logical explanation, but there is also a completely scientific view. Recently, the appearance of several babies at once is a common consequence artificial insemination procedures, due to the specific features of its implementation. Previously, such cases occurred more likely as a result of a coincidence or hereditary predisposition

In addition, ladies in age should expect similar surprises during fertilization. mature age, since before the onset of menopause the body produces eggs in a regular manner. Mothers of many children who stopped before conception are not immune from unexpectedly becoming mothers of many children. hormonal drugs or long time took antibiotics.

Childbirth during a multiple pregnancy usually occurs earlier, the more children a woman carries. This natural process has a number of features in this case, because the work of all systems of the mother’s body works at an increased rate and consumes much more energy.

Despite the fact that pathologies such as uterine bleeding and oxygen starvation of the second fetus cannot be excluded, the procedure is used only under strict indications. If we are talking about a pregnancy with four fetuses or more, there is a high probability of the children dying after their birth. And therefore, you need to be especially scrupulous in choosing an institution that conducts an unusual birth and a doctor who delivers the child.

There is a popular belief that a baby born weighing less than average is not a healthy newborn, even if he was born without any complications and on time. Large children with great height and weight are considered healthy.

Pathology or normal

The norm is considered to be a weight of three kilograms, plus or minus 500 grams. You could say this is a classic weight. “Giants” are considered to be babies weighing more than five kilograms. The height of such heroes is also above average and can reach up to 60 centimeters.

However, there are cases when even these “heroic” norms are exceeded by several tens of percent.

Such large babies will not necessarily become giants. With age, the difference with children with average parameters gradually decreases, and by maturity it disappears altogether. For example, Tom Jerryson, born in Texas, weighed 8.5 kilograms in 1962 and was 58 centimeters tall. By the age of 10, his weight was already 33 kg, that is, it was within average norm. At 50 years old, with a height of 175 cm, his body weight was 80 kg. It turns out that nature itself corrects failures in the development of giant children.

True, not everything is so good. Doctors have been studying such anomalies for several decades. Children born overweight often suffer later diabetes mellitus, allergic diseases are much more common among them. This is due to the changed muscle tone. Children born large often develop neurological diseases. Of course, when such a child is born, it is not necessary that he will develop all such diseases, but the risk of their occurrence is much greater than in “average” children.

It’s just that the baby’s parents will need to pay more attention to such factors in the future.

Records of the birth of giants

The world has long been recording appearances with weight exceeding the norm. The Guinness Book of Records describes many such cases. Just recently, a baby was born in Indonesia whose weight was more than nine kilograms (2009). His height was 62 cm. The birth of such a child can hardly be called a normal birth; most likely, it was removed from the mother.

Modern medicine is ready for such surprises of nature, so the health of the mother of such a hero was not in danger. The difficulty was raising a child after birth. The mother constantly had to feed the baby, since from his first days he had an increased appetite. This large baby was also different from the other babies in his voice, because he cried much louder than the others.

Doctors explain this increased development of the fetus by the mother's illness due to diabetes mellitus. The largest in the countries of the former CIS are considered to be a boy weighing 6.7 kg (Samara) and a girl born in Altai, her weight was 7.7 kg. Currently, the record holder is a child whose birth weight reached 10.2 kg. This baby was born in 1955 in Italy.

Pregnancy for most women is an expected and happy event, but it happens that it turns out to be multiple. Most often, a woman with a multiple pregnancy gives birth to twins or triplets, but is it possible to give birth to six children at one time?

All about multiple pregnancy

Multiple pregnancy is a condition in which two or more embryos develop simultaneously in the uterus. The body of a woman with a multiple pregnancy requires very close attention, so the future mother of many children must treat it with full responsibility. She must follow a special daily and nutritional regimen, as well as undergo preventive measures. possible complications. Children born as a result of multiple pregnancies are called identical or fraternal twins.

Simultaneous maturation of two or more eggs occurs in both one and two female ovaries at once.

The causes of multiple pregnancies are most often several factors, which include maternal heredity and in vitro fertilization, in which all the eggs implanted in the woman’s uterus take root and develop. In addition, multiple pregnancies can develop as a result of stimulation of ovulation by hormones that cause increased functioning of the ovaries, as well as with uterine anomalies, represented by its bicornuity or the presence of an intrauterine septum. And finally, the development of two or more fetuses is caused by the abolition of hormonal contraceptives after their long-term use.

Six-fetal pregnancy

The most multiple pregnancy reliably known to doctors consisted of nine children, several of whom were born alive, but died in childhood. Subsequently, it became known about the birth of seven and eight twins - in each case, only a few children survived the pregnancy. The six Indian twins are the first children ever to survive.

Now there are two sets of twins born in 1983 and 1986 living in England, and two more “sixes” live in Italy and South Africa.

Today, the birth of six children is quite possible, because last years The quality of obstetric services and pediatric therapy, as well as the necessary medical equipment, has increased significantly. Today, doctors can successfully deliver a woman with a multiple pregnancy and save children born even fourteen weeks prematurely, whereas previously they did not try to save such babies, considering the situation completely hopeless.

On January 10, 1974, six twins were born to Sue Rosenkowitz in Cape Town and for the first time all newborns survived.

But this, as they say, is not the limit. More twins have been and are being born in the world. What is the largest number of children born at the same time?

Gears

In October 2008, 31-year-old Digna Carpio from New York gave birth to six twins - four boys and two girls. The weight of the babies at birth ranged from 0.68 to 0.9 kilograms. The happy mother and her husband, 36-year-old Victor, already had a seven-year-old son at that time.

The birth of six twins is an extremely rare occurrence, occurring in one case per 4.4 million population. Only once before had six babies been born at once in New York. This happened in 1997.

In October 2010, in the Italian city of Benevento, near Naples, 30-year-old Carmela Oliva gave birth to six children - four girls and two boys. In Italy this was the first such case in the last 14 years.

To help the babies be born, doctors were forced to resort to caesarean section. Children were born with a low weight - from 600 to 800 grams. According to doctors, this phenomenon is not associated with artificial insemination, but with the treatment that the mother underwent - the fact is that Italian laws prohibit the transplantation of more than three embryos.

Seventeens

Bobbie McCaughey (USA) gave birth to 7 children on November 19, 1997. They weighed from 1048 to 1474 grams and were born at 31 weeks of gestation within 16 minutes using caesarean section.

7 twins were born 8 weeks prematurely - on January 14, 1998 - to 40-year-old Hasna Mohammed Humair (Saudi Arabia). Among them were 4 boys and 3 girls, the smallest weighed 907 grams.

In August 2008, in the northern Egyptian province of Beheira, the 27-year-old wife of a local farmer, Ghazalu Khamis, gave birth to seven twins at once! As it turned out, the Egyptian woman dreamed of giving her husband a son and took pregnancy-stimulating drugs. The result is four sons and three daughters.

Ghazala Khamis was placed under observation two months before giving birth: the development of the twins in the womb did not cause any concern - the doctors were only concerned about the increasing pressure on the kidneys. After the caesarean section, the woman in labor also underwent a blood transfusion. But all the babies were born healthy and quite large - from 1.4 to 2.8 kg, which in itself is a mystery of nature.

Octuplets

On January 26, 2009, 33-year-old Nadi Suleman gave birth to eight twins, and all of them were healthy.

The mother of a newborn octuplet lived then with her other children and parents in the suburbs of Los Angeles - in the small town of Whittier. The family already had six children aged from two to seven years old, including a pair of twins.

The children’s grandmother left her job and devoted herself entirely to her daughter’s family. And grandfather, to help Nadya, went to Iraq to work under a contract. Nadia herself claimed that she decided to take this step because of her own childhood, in which she so lacked brothers and sisters. In addition, the eccentric American said that she follows the example of her idol, Angelina Jolie, who has many children. A few years ago Suleman even made plastic surgery to look like an actress.

The octuplets were conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF). In such cases, doctors insist on reduction (removal) of some embryos. After all, such a quantity can have a bad effect on both the health of the mother and the health of future children.

But the Californian, with the support of her big family, refused the reduction. A single mother divorced her husband a long time ago precisely because they could not have children together.

Cesarean section birth nine weeks early due date. The team of 46 doctors who delivered the baby were expecting the birth of seven babies, which, although not often, does happen. However, there were eight newborns - six boys and two girls - and all of them were quite healthy. The weight of babies is from 700 g to 1.9 kg. Seven of them were immediately breathing on their own and were bottle-fed. The whole family was discharged from the maternity hospital home just a week later.

From 10 and more

There is information about the birth of ten twins at once. Such cases were recorded in Spain in 1924, in China in 1936 and in Brazil in 1946. But this is not the limit.

Eleven kids at once - that's it greatest number twins, information about which is known. The first birth of 11 twins occurred on May 29, 1971 in the USA, in the city of Philadelphia. The second - in 1977 in Bangladesh, in the city of Bagarhat. In both cases, none of the children, unfortunately, survived.

Besides

Largest number of children born to one mother

The largest number of children born to one mother, according to official data, is 69. According to reports made in 1782, between 1725 and 1765. the wife of the Russian peasant Fyodor Vasiliev gave birth 27 times, giving birth to twins 16 times, triplets 7 times and twins 4 times. Of these, only 2 children died in infancy.

Of our contemporaries, the most prolific mother is considered to be Leontina Albina from San Antonio, Chile, who gave birth to 55 children in 1943-81. As a result of her first 5 pregnancies, she gave birth to triplets, all of them male.

Woman giving birth greatest number once

Elizabeth Greenhill from Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire, UK, allegedly gave birth a record number of times - 38 times. She had 39 children - 32 daughters and 7 sons - and died in 1681.

The father with many children

The Russian peasant from the village of Vvedenskoye, Yakov Kirillov, is considered to be the most numerous father in history, who in 1755, in connection with this, was presented to the court (he was then 60 years old). The peasant's first wife gave birth to 57 children: 4 times four, 7 times three, 9 times two and 2 times one. The second wife gave birth to 15 children. Thus, Yakov Kirillov had 72 children from two wives.

Guinness Book of Records

Motherhood

Largest number of children

The largest number of children born to one mother, according to official data, is 69. According to reports made in 1782, between 1725 and 1765. the wife of the Russian peasant Fyodor Vasiliev gave birth 27 times, giving birth to twins 16 times, triplets 7 times and twins 4 times. Of these, only 2 children died in infancy.

Of our contemporaries, the most prolific mother is considered to be Leontina Albina (or Alvina) from San Antonio, Chile, who in 1943-81. gave birth to 55 children. As a result of her first 5 pregnancies, she gave birth to triplets, all of them male.

Elizabeth Greenhill of Abbots Langley, c., allegedly gave birth a record number of times - 38 times. Hertfordshire, UK. She had 39 children - 32 daughters and 7 sons - and died in 1681.

At the age of 63, Rosanna Dalla Corta of Viterbo, Italy, gave birth to a boy on July 18, 1994; Before this, she underwent treatment for infertility. According to a report from the University of Southern California, 63-year-old Arsely Keh also gave birth to a child in 1996.

Brenda Gill's son, James Gill, was born 128 days early in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on May 20, 1987. was 624

The longest intervals between births in multiple pregnancies

Peggy Lynn from Huntington, NY Pennsylvania! USA, gave birth to a girl, Hannah, on November 11, 1995, and the second of the twins, Eric, only 84 days later (February 2, 1996).

The most long separation two twins

Iris Jones and Aro Campbell (b. 1914) met after 75 years of separation.

Multiple births

Siamese twins

Conjoined twins began to be called “Siamese” after Chang and Eng Bunkers were born conjoined at the sternum in the Maeklong region of Siam (Thailand) on May 11, 1811. They were married to Sarah and Adelaide Yates of State. North Carolina, USA, and had 10 and 12 children, respectively. They died in 1874, and with a difference of 3 hours.

The most extreme form of this phenomenon is a human being with two heads, four arms and two legs (dicephales tetrabrachius dipus). The only recorded case of this kind is Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapov, born in January 1950. in USSR.

The first successful operation to separate conjoined twins was performed on December 14, 1952 at Mount Sinai Hospital, Cleveland, PC. Ohio, USA, Dr. Jacques S. Geller.

Largest number of multiple births in one family

Maddalena Granata from Italy (b. 1839) gave birth to triplets 15 times.

There is also information about birth on May 29, 1971 in Philadelphia, pcs. Pennsylvania, USA, and in May 1977 in Bagarhat, Bangladesh, 11 twins. In both cases, not a single child survived.

Most an old man(documented)

In Arles, France, 122-year-old Jeanne Louise Calmat, born February 21, 1875, died in August 1997. Today, the oldest person is Marie Louise Febron-Mailer, Quebec Ave., Canada, who is 116 years old.

Oldest twins

February 14, 1803 in Effington, pc. Eli Shadrack Phipps and John Meshack Phipps were born in Virginia, USA. Eli was the first to die at the age of 108. It was February 23, 1911.

Oldest triplets

Faith, Hope and Charity Cardwell were born in Elm Mott, Pc. Texas, USA, May 18, 1899 Faith was the first to die on October 2, 1994 at the age of 95.

Oldest quadruplets

Adolph, Anna Maria, Emma and Elizabeth Ottman were born May 5, 1912. in Munich, Germany. Adolf was the first to die on March 17, 1992 at the age of 79.

Largest number of descendants

In countries where polygamy is legal, a person can have countless children. It is said that the Sultan of Morocco Moulay Ismail (1672-1727) had 525 sons and 342 daughters by 1703, and in 1721, when he was 49 years old, became the father of the 700th son.

On the day of his death at the age of 96 in October 1992, Samuel S. Maheth of Freiberg, Pc. Pennsylvania, USA, had a total of 824 living descendants: 11 children, 97 grandchildren, 634 great-grandchildren and 82 great-great-grandchildren.

Descendants spanning the largest number of generations

Augusta Bunge from piece. Wisconsin, USA, became a great-great-great-great-grandmother on January 21, 1989, at the age of 110, when her great-great-great-granddaughter gave birth to her son, Christopher John Bollig.

Largest number of living ancestors

At the time of her birth in 1982, Megan Sue Austin, Bar Harbor, Pc. Maine, USA, had 19 direct ascendants, which included a full set of grandparents, great-grandparents, and 5 great-great-grandparents.

Most fertile pregnancies

Dr. Gennaro Montanino, Rome, Italy, claims to have removed the embryos of 10 girls and 5 boys from the uterus of a 35-year-old woman who was 4 months pregnant in July 1971. This unique case of 15th pregnancy was the result of taking fertility pills.

9 children - the largest number in one pregnancy - were born on June 13, 1971 by Geraldine Broadrick in Sydney, Australia. 5 boys and 4 girls were born: 2 boys were stillborn, and none of the rest lived more than 6 days.

Cases of the birth of 10 twins (2 boys and 8 girls) are known from reports from Spain (1924), China (1936) and Brazil (April 1946).

Infectious diseases

“Ancient” diseases

Already in 1350 BC. In ancient Egypt, cases of leprosy were described.

Egyptian mummies preserved from the 20th dynasty (1250-1000 BC) showed traces of an infectious liver and kidney disease such as (Tuberculosis Schistosomiasis).

The biblical Old Testament mentions and.

“Newest” disease

Recently, an infectious disease has been discovered that is the new kind Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, leading to dementia. The disease is likely caused by a tiny piece of protein called a prion. It is transmitted to humans from cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE).

Most widespread disease

The most widespread infectious disease is upper respiratory tract disease. There are at least 40 different viruses (either transmitted through the air or through direct contact) that cause symptoms such as sneezing, sore throat, watery eyes, runny nose, headache, slight increase in temperature.

A rare disease

The rarest disease now is smallpox. In May 1978, the World Health Organization (WHO) had not recorded a single case of smallpox in the previous 6 months. The last fatal case of smallpox occurred in August 1978. A photographer working in a laboratory at the University of Birmingham, UK, was infected from a sample kept for research purposes.

The most dangerous diseases

A mortality rate of over 50% is observed with Lassa fever, an epidemic disease caused by a rare West African virus. Very high mortality was also observed with cercopithecus hemorrhagic fever (Marburg virus disease) and Ebola fever.

Since 1900, cholera has killed approximately 20 million people in India. human lives. During epidemic outbreaks, if left untreated, the mortality rate can reach 50%.

Less common is yellow fever, a viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes. It reportedly kills 10-90% of those affected.

The most dangerous malaria infection

Multiple pregnancy is a phenomenon that has been quite thoroughly studied and described by modern medicine. Doctors observe women carrying twins or triplets with special attention, but do not feel any surprise. Meanwhile, science knows cases of the simultaneous birth of four, five babies and even more. What is the largest number of children born to one woman in one birth and in her entire life?

Mothers who have many children on the same day

According to global statistics, one out of 700 pregnancies in the world is quadruple. Carrying and giving birth to four babies at the same time is a serious test for the female body. Expectant mothers expecting such an impressive replenishment are observed by doctors with special attention. But even today, not all quadruplets survive and reach adulthood. One of the most famous fours is the Durst sisters: Callie, Sarah, Kendra and Megan. These girls are not just quadruplets, but completely identical twins. In addition, today they are real stars thanks to their own reality show. In fact, quartets are born all over the world not so rarely, but the appearance of four identical twins is a real sensation. In 2000, there were only 15 such quadruplets around the world. Interestingly, most often twins in quartets are girls. The Guinness Book of Records not only records the largest number of children born to one woman, but also contains a record of the oldest mother of quadruplets. California resident Mary Fudel gave birth to four babies at once at the age of 55. Unfortunately, the history of this family quite sad: one baby died, two were given up for adoption, and only one of the four is being raised by his own mother.

Is it possible to have five children at the same time?

Science also knows cases of the simultaneous birth of five children as a result of pregnancies that occurred naturally. In 1934, five girls were born in Canada. All the twins grew up and reached adulthood, invariably remaining a landmark for their hometown. True, the sisters often said that such fame did not bring them happiness. In 2013, in Salt Lake City, a young mother gave birth to three girls and two boys at the same time. This is not the largest number of children born at the same time, but the interesting fact is that pregnancy also occurred naturally. In 2016, in Odessa, Oksana Kobeletskaya, at the age of 37, became the mother of five children at the same time. This mother of many children Throughout the pregnancy, doctors promised the birth of triplets.

Known cases of six and seven babies being born at the same time

To give birth to six children at the same time - is this possible with natural conception? It's hard to believe, but human body much more resilient than we used to think. Today there are 14 sextuplets living in the world. Many of these children were born through natural conception. For the first time, the public learned about absolutely healthy six babies born to one mother at the same time in 1974.

Each family necessarily has its own largest number of children born at the same time. We are used to being proud of relatives who gave birth to 2-4 children at the same time. But in the McCoy family, living in Iowa, 7 babies were born at the same time in 1997. All children survived and are developing, but two of them have serious illnesses. There are several other known cases of the birth of septuplets. Such children appeared in 1998 with Hashi Mohammed Humair from Saudi Arabia. A similar case was recorded in Egypt, where Ghazali Ibrahim Omar, at the age of 27, also became the mother of seven children at once. The woman claims that the pregnancy is natural and she did not resort to artificial insemination.

Absolute records of motherhood

The first known case of eight babies being born at the same time was recorded in 1998. Nkem Chukwu, who lives in Texas, became happy. This case is unique in that the first baby was born and the remaining seven children were born only on the 20th of the same month. One of the eight babies died almost immediately after birth, and the rest reached adulthood. For many years, it was believed that 8 was the largest number of children born to one woman in one birth. In 2009, the world's most famous octuplets were born. Their mother, Nadi Suliman, actively publicizes her unusual pregnancy and the process of raising children. To date, this case is the only one in which all newborns survived. And yet, what is the largest number of children a woman has given birth to at one time? With this achievement in the field of motherhood, Maria Fernandez from India entered the Guinness Book of Records. At the age of 42, the woman gave birth to 11 boys. Natural childbirth took only 37 minutes, all the babies are absolutely healthy.

How many children did the mother with many children have?

The largest number of children born to one woman during her life is 69. This record was set by a Russian woman, the wife of a peasant. Fedora Vasilyeva in the 18th century. Between 1725 and 1765, the heroine mother gave birth to twins 16 times, triplets 7 times and quadruplets 4 times. Only two out of 69 babies died in infancy; all the rest grew and developed normally. The record set in the 18th year by the peasant woman Vasilyeva has still not been broken. But there is in modern history and others interesting examples. For example, in Chile at the end of the 20th century, Leontina Apbina gave birth to only 55 children.

Unique cases related to pregnancy and childbirth

Not all records in the category multiple pregnancies end with stories of happy people large families. In 1917, a case was recorded in Rome fifteen-fruited pregnancy. According to doctors, this phenomenon is a consequence of long-term treatment of female infertility. However, the record pregnancy was terminated. World medical statistics have also recorded cases of one woman bearing 9, 10 and even 11 children at the same time. In such situations, stillbirth is common and high in the first days after birth. To date, the largest number of children born to one woman during one pregnancy is 11. The Guinness Book of Records in this category includes the birth of Maria Fernandez, during which completely healthy and viable boys were born.

Illustration copyright Getty

Bearing and raising even one child is quite a labor-intensive task. However, historical documents claim that a certain woman gave birth to as many as 69 children. Is it true? And will modern medicine be able to expand women's reproductive capabilities? The correspondent is looking for answers to these questions

If the British tabloid press had existed in the 18th century, the story of the family of Russian peasant Fyodor Vasiliev would have caused a frenzy of excitement.

What's the matter? It is believed that Vasiliev’s first wife, whose name has not been preserved by history, holds the world record for the number of children born.

According to a message sent to Moscow by the monks of the St. Nicholas Monastery, between 1725 and 1765 Vasilyeva managed to give birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven times to give birth to triplets, and four times to quadruples.

She gave birth, respectively, 27 times, for a total of 69 children.

One can only wonder how a modern newspaper editor would react to such prolificity, especially given the uproar surrounding mother of octuplets Nadia Suleman (nicknamed "Octomom" and giving birth to 14 children) and the British Radford family (their 17 children were the subjects of a TV documentary).

So, is it actually possible to have more than 60 children?

A woman could theoretically mother more children than we ever thought possible

"Something from the realm of fantasy. Just imagine, 69 children? Come on!" - says James Segars, director of the Division of Research in the Field of Reproduction and women's health Johns Hopkins University.

I decided to take a closer look at this surprising (and, at first glance, dubious) statement by consulting with reproduction experts.

I was hoping to find out what the physical limits were on the number of children a woman could bear naturally.

Along the way, it was discovered that thanks to the achievements of modern science, a woman could theoretically become a mother to more children than we ever thought possible.

First, let's look at the mathematical part of the Vasilievs' story. Is it possible to have 27 pregnancies in the 40 years we are talking about?

At first, this does not seem counterintuitive - especially since triplets and quadruplets are usually born more than a year later. early stages.

It turns out that in total Vasilyeva was pregnant for 18 years

Let's make some rough calculations: 16 twins, 37 weeks; seven triplets at 32 weeks; four quadruplets of 30 weeks. It turns out that in total Vasilyeva was pregnant for 18 years out of 40. She had a craving for salty food - and so on for a couple of decades.

Another question is whether this is possible in reality.

First of all, it is necessary to understand whether a woman is able to maintain constant readiness for childbearing over such a long period.

Typically, women have their first period around the age of 15: every 28 days, their ovaries release an egg—usually one.

Ovulation repeats until the supply of eggs in the ovaries is depleted during menopause, which occurs around age 51.

However, a woman’s ability to conceive sharply decreases long before menopause.

"A 45-year-old woman's chance of getting pregnant is about 1% per month," says Valerie Baker, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford University School of Medicine.

A woman's aging leads to a reduction in the number and quality of eggs. In progress intrauterine development A female embryo can have up to seven million immature eggs, with about a million remaining at birth.

The ability to become pregnant decreases with each pregnancy, because each subsequent birth takes its toll on the body

U adult woman Only a few hundred thousand eggs are retained. Of these many cells found inside the follicles, approximately 400 reach maturity and participate in ovulation, providing their carrier with approximately 30 years of potential childbearing.

The last eggs that ovulate late in a woman's reproductive years are at much higher risk of mutations, genetic abnormalities, and other problems associated with aging.

Often, pregnancies involving such atypical eggs end spontaneously.

"Most women are unable to get pregnant after they reach 42-44 years of age," says James Segars. "However, sometimes this happens closer to 50 years of age."

Moreover, the ability to become pregnant decreases with each pregnancy, because each subsequent birth affects the female reproductive system.

And if Vasilyeva breastfed her children - which is logical for a peasant woman who could not afford wet nurses - ovulation did not occur in her body. This natural method of birth control would further reduce her chances of having 69 pregnancies.

It turns out that Fedor and his wife were very lucky (or perhaps unlucky) that even after she reached 50 years old, she did not have any problems with having new children.

Survive childbirth

And this is not all the difficulties associated with the birth of 69 babies.

Evolution has taken care of slowing down women’s “biological clocks,” because bearing and giving birth to a child is an extremely difficult task, which only becomes more difficult with age.

“The limits must be set by nature,” says Valerie Baker. “Pregnancy is the most stressful process a woman’s body will ever go through.”

The fact that childbirth is a burden for a woman gives the greatest reason to doubt the veracity of the story about 69 children - especially considering that it happened a couple of centuries ago in the Russian outback.

IN developed countries availability of modern obstetric care (for example, due to medical reasons caesarean section) has reduced maternal mortality.

In Britain, per 100,000 births, only eight women die from pregnancy-related causes during pregnancy or six weeks after pregnancy. These are the latest statistics from the World Bank.

Meanwhile, in one of the poorest countries on Earth, Sierra Leone, the rate is 1,100 deaths per 100,000 births.

The tendency to have twins is usually hereditary. Perhaps in Vasilyeva it was especially pronounced?

In this regard, the assumption that Fyodor Vasilyev’s wife survived 27 births raises doubts.

"Previously, any pregnancy was a risk to the mother's life," explains Segars. At multiple births(for example, when giving birth to quadruplets), the risk of serious life-threatening complications increases rapidly.

“Every pregnancy at that time was complex, even if it was just one child,” says Jonathan Tilley of Northeastern University (USA), who is researching the use of oocyte stem cells to treat female infertility and other diseases (read about this below).

A bunch of backbiters

Another aspect that looks implausible in the Vasilievs’ story is the possibility of multiple conceptions of two, three and four children at the same time.

There are two types of multiple pregnancies: either several eggs that leave the ovaries as a result of ovulation are successfully fertilized by sperm (so-called fraternal twins), or one fertilized egg divides into two or more viable embryos, resulting in identical twins with identical genetic code.

In general, such situations happen extremely rarely. So, in 2012 in Britain, the chance of having twins was only 1.5% of all pregnancies, triplets - an insignificant three ten thousandths of a percent, and four or more babies were born three times out of 778,805 times. This is evidenced by statistics from the Multiple Births Foundation.

Yes, the tendency to give birth to twins can indeed be hereditary, and in the wife of Fyodor Vasiliev it could be especially pronounced.

However, in general, the likelihood that Vasilyeva was somehow able to conceive and survive the birth of at least 16 twins looks microscopic.

“Are there 16 twins alone? I would be very surprised,” Tilly comments.

Another alarming bell in the Vasilievs’ story: it is alleged that 67 of the 69 children born to them survived infancy.

In the 18th century, infant mortality was high even for children born as a result of singleton pregnancies, and reached alarming levels in the case of twins and so on - these children were usually premature and less healthy.

Now surrogate mothers can carry embryos from other parents, which potentially further increases the number of children in the family

"Even if you had quadruplets today, I'm not sure they would all survive," says James Segars.

Finally, it is impossible to believe in the existence of a woman ready for such a life. “Just imagine how stressful it is!” - says Valerie Baker.

Segars echoes her: “You could go crazy! I can’t imagine what it was like to live in this house.”

If, after all, this story is true and not a legend, then the endless need to take care of children could be the decisive reason for the Vasilievs’ divorce, which followed several decades of marriage.

Already an elderly man, Fyodor Vasiliev remarried, and his new wife supposedly gave birth to "only" 18 children. This is about topics for the yellow press.

Brave New World

So what is the actual limit? The answer to this question is not so simple, since the “natural” restrictions that apply to the offspring of an individual woman can now be circumvented.

Firstly, the development of assisted reproductive technologies (ART), which appeared in the late 1970s, led to a surge in the birth rate of twins, triplets, and so on (Nadya Suleman used ART).

Secondly, surrogate mothers can now carry embryos from other parents, which potentially further increases the number of children in the family.

But here's what scientists recently found out: we probably greatly underestimate women's reproductive capabilities.

According to research conducted in recent years, inside women's ovaries there are “oocyte stem cells”, the proper stimulation of which could lead to the creation of an almost infinite number of eggs.

Jonathan Tilley and his colleagues collected information about these cells from creatures ranging from flies to monkeys.

In 2012, they reached the stem cells of human oocytes. As it turned out, they do not contribute to the production of eggs, unlike similar animal cells. For female flies, this is a common way to produce new eggs.

In principle, women could become mothers to hundreds or even thousands of children

Many doctors working in his field express doubts, but Jonathan Tilly is confident: there is a theoretical possibility of activating this mechanism in women.

He hopes to help women whose egg reserves have been depleted, including prematurely, such as due to cancer treatment.

If this hypothetical procedure were to actually be possible, one would imagine that fertility drugs would be used to hyperstimulate the ovaries, causing multiple follicles to mature and ovulate simultaneously.

These many eggs can be surgically removed and fertilized in vitro, and then surgically placed into the wombs of any number of surrogate mothers, whose task is to carry the embryos. Each could potentially give birth to two or more twins.

Thus, from a reproductive point of view, women could move closer to men, becoming mothers to hundreds or even thousands of children - leaving far behind the achievements of Fyodor Vasiliev's wife.

However, Tilly makes it clear that his research in no way suggests that women will be able to have thousands of children. He intends to help eliminate infertility in those diagnosed with infertility.

However, the researcher hopes that scientific advances will help equalize the reproductive capabilities of men and women.

After all, males produce millions of sperm throughout their lives, so the only natural limitation of their offspring is the presence (or absence) of ovulating partners.

When it comes to the idea that restrictions on female fertility might be lifted, everyone starts going crazy Jonathan Tilley

Conqueror (and some say serial rapist) Genghis Khan apparently fathered hundreds of children born across his vast Asian empire some 800 years ago. According to genetics, about 16 million people living today are his descendants.

"Theoretically, men can become fathers until very old age, and if you start early, the situation could develop like Genghis Khan," says Jonathan Tilly.

According to him, “male fertility is actually unlimited,” but based on what his research will give desired result, then “women’s too.”

If such a scenario does come true, the existence of mothers with countless children will create a sensation, perhaps even greater than the 69 Vasiliev children.

The question is: How would the public react to multiple fatherhood? If it's not so violent, is that fair?

“People take unlimited male fertility as a given - everyone knows we can do it,” Tilly explains. “But as soon as it comes to the idea that restrictions on female fertility might be lifted, everyone starts going crazy.”

The researcher believes that the issue needs to be put into perspective and the equality that women have deservedly fought for over the past few decades should also apply to issues of reproduction.

Tilly says this about this: “In fact, there should be no difference between the sexes.”