Twins record for most. Most multiple twins born at one time

The birth of one baby is a classic of the nature genre regarding the Crown of Creation, man. However, “thanks to” our intervention in nature and the development of artificial insemination technology, multiple pregnancies are no longer uncommon.

Twins and triplets are no longer a special feature. Women give birth to five, eight and even 11 children at once. We invite you to look at these courageous mothers, who at one time created a large, large family for themselves.

Identical 14-year-old twins were born as a quartet: Megan, Sarah, Kendra and Callie Durst became famous at the age of 6, and are now starring in a reality show about their lives.
According to data for 2005, 15 identical quadruplets were born in the world, 10 of them were sisters, but there are many more non-identical quadruplets. According to statistics, one quadruplet occurs in 700 thousand pregnancies.

The most famous, first and only case of the birth of five identical twins - Canadian family Dionne. The girls were born in 1934 and long years were a landmark of the province of Ontario, and according to the twins themselves, their fate was not an enviable one.

In 2013, quintuplets were born in Salt Lake City - 3 girls and 2 boys. It is noteworthy that pregnancy occurred naturally.

Last year, 2016, 37-year-old Odessa resident Oksana Kobeletskaya gave birth to quintuplets, although the couple were expecting twins.

Nkem Chukwu from Texas gave birth to eight babies in December 1998. Moreover, on December 8 she gave birth to a girl, and on the 20th she gave birth to 5 more girls and two boys (one of the babies died shortly after giving birth).

In 2009, 33-year-old Nadi Suliman gave birth to eight twins - two girls and six boys. All children are alive and well, and this is the only case of octuplets where all survived.

Nineteens were born in 1971, 1972, 1976, 1977, 1979 and 1999, but, unfortunately, none of these 54 children survived

Ten children - until today was considered the largest number of children born from one pregnancy. In 1946, 8 girls and 2 boys were born in Brazil; there are also known cases of the birth of such a number of children in China in 1936 and in Spain in 1924. There is no information about whether the children survived.

42-year-old resident of the Indian city of Riley Maria Fernandez naturally gave birth to 11 children in 37 minutes. All are completely healthy boys, six of whom are identical twins. This phenomenon is included in the Guinness Book of Records. Thus, today 11 children born from one pregnancy are an absolute record.

According to the Guinness Book of Records, a Russian woman gave birth to the most children in the 18th century: she gave birth to 69 children in 30 years.

The Guinness Book of Records records that the most children were born in the 18th century by a Russian woman, about whom it is only known that she was the wife of the peasant Fyodor Vasilyev. Over 30 years, she gave birth 27 times: 16 pairs of twins, 7 triplets and 4 quadruplets. There are 69 children in total.

By the way, after the death of his first wife, Fyodor Vasiliev married again, and his second wife gave birth to 18 more children: six twins and two triplets. However, even this result does not allow us to consider Fyodor Vasilyev the most father of many children in history. But the record of the nameless peasant woman has not yet been broken.

There is probably not a single country where Mother's Day is not celebrated. It appeared in Russia relatively recently - it has been celebrated on the last Sunday of November since 1998, but it is gradually entering Russian homes. And this is wonderful: no matter how many good ones kind words No matter what we told our mothers, there would still be few of them.

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The most unusual mothers

The mother who gave birth to the tiniest baby. Baby Mahajabina Sheikh at birth weighed 243.81 g with a height of 10 cm.

The oldest mother. Indian woman Rayo Devi Lohan gave birth for the first time at 70 years old.

Lina Medina became the youngest mother. The girl gave birth to a child when she was 5 years and 7 months old.

A mother who gave birth to eight children at one time. Nadia Denise Daud-Suleman Gutierrez gave birth in 2009, and six more children were waiting for her at home.

The world record for the difference between births is set by Elizabeth Ann. She gave birth to her first child in 1956, when she was 19 years old, and her second son was born when her mother was already 60 years old. Thus, the difference was 41 years.

So much so that no one can beat him to this day. The woman gave birth to sixty-nine children - 69!

Only two babies died during childbirth. The Russian record holder gave birth to sixteen twins, seven triplets and four times quadruplets. And all this in twenty-seven births over thirty years. After the death of his wife, Fyodor Vasiliev found a new wife - a potential mother. The second wife gave the restless peasant eighteen more children. By the way, even after this, Fyodor Vasiliev did not break the Guinness record for having children as a father of many children. The Guinness Book of World Records has recorded a staggering number of children from one father. The most prolific pope is a Moroccan ruler who lived in the first half of the eighteenth century. He helped give birth to three hundred and forty-two girls and seven hundred boys. But the results of our contemporaries are not so impressive. There is now a woman living in Chile who has set a Guinness record for having children in the twenty-first century. Leontina Albina gave birth to fifty-five children. In total, she was “on maternity leave” for about forty years. The first five times the woman gave birth exclusively to triplets. Moreover, only boys were born in triplets.

There are many more interesting and new records from the Guinness Book in our VK group

The record for the largest number of births was set by the Englishwoman Elizabeth Greenhill, who lived in the seventeenth century. She gave birth thirty-nine times.

As a result, she had thirty-nine children, among whom there was a real “battalion of women” - thirty-two girls and only seven boys. The Guinness record for giving birth to children at one time belongs to American Bobbie McCaughey and resident Saudi Arabia Hasne Mohammed Humair. Both women gave birth to seven live babies at one time. Australian Geraldine Broadwick managed to give birth to nine children at once, but, unfortunately, only seven survived. Two were stillborn. Eight children were carried by Nkem Chukwu from the USA. She managed to give birth to only one naturally; the others were born with the help of doctors (caesarean section). One child died during childbirth. Lina Medina became a mother at the age of five and a half. The Guinness record for the birth of children in the category “Oldest mother” was set by the Italian Rosanna Dalla Corta. She managed to give birth at sixty-three years old. Arsely Kekh from the USA also gave birth at the same age. Rosanna Dalla Corta was treated for infertility for a long time and believed that someday she would know the happiness of motherhood. The heaviest child was born weighing ten kilograms, and the smallest one weighing two hundred and eighty-one grams.

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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 at 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 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) 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 varieties 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 occur 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 the last years According to research, 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.”