The largest number of children born at the same time. Mother-heroine from Russia got into the Guinness Book of Records

On July 18, 1994, 63-year-old Italian Rosanna Dalla Corta made a sensation in world medicine by giving birth to a boy after a course of infertility treatment. We decided to recall the most unusual childbearing records.

The youngest mother

The youngest mother in the world was Lina Medina in 1939 in Peru. At the age of 5 years and 7 months, this girl gave birth to a 3-kilogram baby. Lina's parents noticed a strange bloating in the girl when she was already 7 months old. At first, the doctors stated the tumor, but then admitted that the girl was pregnant. Lina's pregnancy proceeded absolutely normally, as a result, the baby was born quite healthy. Lina did not dare to name the cause of pregnancy and the real father, even after several decades. The earliest born child lived until the age of 40, and then died of a bone marrow disease.

First pregnant man

On June 29, 2008, the world was shocked by the news that the first pregnant man had successfully delivered a baby. This was done by 34-year-old American Thomas Beaty, who gave birth to a healthy girl. The fact is that 15 years ago, Thomas decided on a sex change operation. His mammary glands were removed, but the female reproductive system was left inside the body. The child was born through artificial insemination. During childbirth, the man had to do a caesarean section, although Beaty himself claims that the birth took place naturally. From the hospital, his wife Nancy met him, who claimed that the family would be absolutely traditional: Beaty would play the paternal role, and she would play the maternal one.

The heaviest baby in the world

In 1955, the world's heaviest baby was born to a woman named Carmelina Fedele in Aversa, Italy. His weight was 10.2 kilograms. The child was born healthy, it was a boy. Before this incident, no one in the world has ever given birth to a 10-kilogram baby. In 2009, a baby weighing almost 9 kg was born in Indonesia, and in 1992 in the UK there was a child is born weighing 7 kg. For comparison, the smallest surviving baby in history weighed 281 grams.

The largest number of children born of a woman for the whole life

The wife of a Russian peasant, Fyodor Vasiliev, gave birth and raised 69 children. In just 40 years, she managed to give birth 27 times: 16 times twins, 7 times triplets and 4 times 4 twins. Only two Vasiliev children died in infancy.

Most big number multiple births in one woman

Maddalena Granata from Italy, born in 1839, gave birth 15 times in her life - and all 15 times she gave birth to triplets. The most multiple pregnancy in history took place in Kursk: there a woman gave birth to 10 children at a time. No one has yet been able to repeat the record - and the woman herself, of course, prefers not to try.

Record number of births

Elizabeth Greenhill, a resident of the UK, got into the Guinness Book of Records for the largest number of births. This woman gave birth 38 times. She only had twins once. Elizabeth died in 1681, leaving behind a "rich" inheritance in the form of 32 daughters and 7 sons.

Express info by country

The Earth is in third place in terms of distance from the Sun and in fifth place among all the planets. solar system to size.

Age– 4.54 billion years

Medium radius - 6,378.2 km

Middle circle - 40,030.2 km

Square– 510,072 million km² (29.1% land and 70.9% water)

Number of continents– 6: Eurasia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Antarctica

Number of oceans– 4: Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic

Population– 7.3 billion people (50.4% men and 49.6% women)

Most populous states: Monaco (18,678 people/km2), Singapore (7607 people/km2) and Vatican City (1914 people/km2)

Number of countries: total 252, independent 195

Number of languages ​​in the world– about 6,000

Number of official languages- 95; most common: English (56 countries), French (29 countries) and Arabic (24 countries)

Number of nationalities– about 2,000

Climatic zones: equatorial, tropical, temperate and arctic (basic) + subequatorial, subtropical and subarctic (transitional)

Only another mother-heroine from Italy, Maddalena Granata, can compare with Elizabeth. During her life she was pregnant 15 times and each time she had 3 children at once.

History also knows cases of multiple pregnancies, when 11 children were born to one woman at once. This happened at the end of the 20th century in the USA and Bangladesh. In both cases, not a single child survived.

Record number of embryos

Unfortunately, in almost all cases of multiple pregnancy (more than 10 embryos), if it comes to childbirth, then the chances of survival for such babies are negligible. In 1971, in Italy, Dr. Gennaro Montanino performed an abortion on a 35-year-old woman from whose uterus he removed 15 embryos! 5 of them were male and 10 were female. The operation was carried out for a period of 4 months. In the course of lengthy proceedings, the doctors came to the conclusion that such an anomaly had become side effect taking pills for infertility.

In the same year, in Australia, a woman gave birth to 9 children - 5 boys and 4 girls. 2 boys were born dead, the rest of the children lived no more than a week.

At various times in the middle of the 20th century, reports came from China, Brazil and Spain about the birth of 10 children at once. There is no information about whether the babies survived or not.

In early 2009, a resident of the United States, Nadia Suleiman, gave birth to eight children at once. The media gave her the nickname "Octomam". The weight of six boys and two girls ranged from 800 to 1400 g. All children are alive and well. It is noteworthy that the American has never been married and before this birth she already had six children.

The largest number of children born to one woman

History knows a woman who gave birth to 69 children. The wife of a Russian peasant between 1725 and 1765 gave birth 27 times. The woman gave birth 4 times to 4 children, 7 times to 3 and 16 times to twins. All children, except for two, survived.

Another prolific mother is Leontina Albina from Chile. She gave birth to 55 children, and the first 5 times were born 3 babies and only boys.

The largest father in history

For some reason, all records relating to children are tied to mothers. However, history also knows the most large father - this is Yakov Kirillov. From his first marriage, he had 57 children, and from the second - 15. In total, it turns out that a man became a father 72 times. For this, in 1755 he was presented to the court at the age of 60.

Grandfather-record holder

Another man set a kind of record in the field of childbearing. This is a modern resident of Novokuznetsk Alexey Shapovalov. He is called the richest grandfather in the world. Alexey has 11 sons and two daughters, who gave him a total of 117 grandchildren. Those, in turn, have already managed to “reward” grandfather with 33 great-grandchildren.

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

Only two babies died in childbirth. The Russian record holder gave birth to sixteen twins, seven triplets and four times four twins. And this is all for twenty-seven births over thirty years. After the death of his wife, Fedor Vasiliev found a new wife - a potential mother. The second wife gave the restless peasant eighteen more children. By the way, even after that, Fedor Vasiliev did not break the Guinness record for having children as a father of many children. The Guinness Book of 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 bring into the world three hundred and forty-two girls and seven hundred boys. But our contemporaries' results are not so impressive. There is now a woman in Chile who has set the Guinness record for having children in the twenty-first century. Leontina Albina gave birth to fifty-five children. In total, she stayed “on maternity leave” for about forty years. The first five times a woman gave birth exclusively to triplets. And only boys were born in triplets.

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 which the real "woman's battalion" - thirty-two girls and only seven boys. The Guinness record for the birth of children at a time belongs to American Bobbi McCaughey and a 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 a time, but, unfortunately, only seven survived. Two were born dead. Eight children were born by Nkem Chukwu from the USA. Only one she managed to give birth naturally, others were born with the help of doctors (caesarean section). One child died in childbirth. Lina Medina became a mother at the age of five and a half. The Guinness record for having children in the category "The oldest mother" was set by the Italian Rosanna Dalla Corta. She managed to give birth at the age of sixty-three. At the same age she gave birth to Arceli Keh from the USA. Rosanna Dalla Corta was treated for infertility for a long time and believed that one day she would know the happiness of motherhood. The heaviest child was born with a weight of ten kilograms, and the smallest - with a weight of two hundred and eighty-one grams.

Image copyright getty

Carrying and raising even one child is a rather laborious 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 opportunities? The correspondent is looking for answers to these questions

If the British yellow press existed in the 18th century, the story of the family of the Russian peasant Fyodor Vasiliev would have caused her crazy excitement.

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

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

She gave birth, respectively, 27 times, total - 69 children.

One can only wonder how a modern newspaper editor would have reacted to such fertility, especially given the buzz surrounding the mother of octuals, Nadia Suleman (nicknamed "Octomam" and father of 14 children) and the British Radford family (their 17 children were featured in a TV documentary).

So, is it possible in principle to give birth to more than 60 children?

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

"Something from the realm of fantasy. Well, imagine 69 children? Come on!" - says James Segars, Head 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 reproduction experts.

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

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

First, let's deal with the mathematical part of the Vasiliev story. Are 27 pregnancies possible in the 40 years in question?

At first glance, it seems that there is nothing contrary to common sense in this - especially considering that triplets and quadruplets are usually born on more early dates.

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

Let's make approximate calculations: 16 twins for 37 weeks; seven triplets at 32 weeks; four quarters of 30 weeks. It turns out that in total Vasilyeva was pregnant for 18 years out of 40. She was drawn to salty things - 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 a constant readiness for childbearing over such a long period.

As a rule, the first menstruation in women occurs around the age of 15: every 28 days, an egg is released from their ovaries - usually one.

Ovulation is repeated until the ovaries are depleted of eggs during menopause, which occurs around the age of 51.

However, a woman's ability to conceive decreases sharply long before the onset of menopause.

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

Aging women leads to a decrease in the number and quality of eggs. In progress prenatal development a female embryo may have up to seven million immature eggs, leaving about a million at birth.

The ability to get pregnant decreases with each pregnancy, because each subsequent birth affects the body

At adult woman only a few hundred thousand eggs remain. Of this many cells inside the follicles, approximately 400 reach maturity and participate in ovulation, providing their carrier with approximately 30 years of potential childbearing.

The last eggs, which ovulate at the end of a woman's reproductive years, are much more at risk for mutations, genetic abnormalities, and other problems associated with aging.

Often, pregnancies involving such atypical eggs end spontaneously.

“Most women are not able to get pregnant after they reach 42-44 years old,” says James Segars. “But sometimes it happens closer to 50 years.”

Moreover, the ability to get 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 a nurse - ovulation did not occur in her body. This natural method of contraception 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 had no problems with having new children.

survive childbirth

And that's not all the difficulties associated with the birth of 69 babies.

Evolution has taken care of slowing down the female "biological clock", because bearing and giving birth to a child is an extremely difficult task, which only becomes more difficult with age.

"Restrictions must be set by nature itself," says Valerie Baker. "Pregnancy is the most stressful process a woman's body has ever gone through."

How burdensome childbirth is for a woman gives the greatest reason to doubt the veracity of the story about 69 children - especially considering that the case was a couple of centuries ago in the Russian outback.

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

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

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. Maybe Vasilyeva expressed it especially brightly?

In this regard, the assumption that the wife of Fyodor Vasiliev survived 27 births is doubtful.

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

"Every pregnancy at that time was difficult, even if only one child was born," says Jonathan Tilly of Northeastern University (USA), who is researching the use of oocyte stem cells to treat female infertility and other diseases (read more about this below).

A bunch of backbiters

Another aspect that looks implausible in the story of the Vasilievs 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 spermatozoa (so-called fraternal twins), or one fertilized egg is divided into two or more viable embryos, resulting in identical twins with an identical genetic code.

In general, such situations are extremely rare. So, in 2012 in Britain, the chance of giving birth to 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 the statistics of the Multiple Births Foundation.

Yes, the tendency to give birth to twins is indeed hereditary, and in Fyodor Vasiliev's wife it could be expressed especially clearly.

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

"There are 16 twins alone? I would be very surprised," Tilly comments.

Another wake-up call in the history of the Vasilievs: it is claimed that 67 of the 69 children born by them survived infancy.

In the 18th century, infant mortality was high even for children born as a result of a single pregnancy, and reached alarming levels in the event of the birth of twins and so on - these children are usually premature and less healthy.

Now surrogate mothers can carry fetuses from other parents, potentially further increasing 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!" Valerie Baker says

Segars echoes her: "You can go crazy! I can't imagine what it was like to live in this house."

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

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

Brave new world

So what is the real limit? The answer to this question is not so simple, since the "natural" restrictions that apply to the offspring of a single 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, now surrogate mothers can carry fetuses from other parents, potentially further increasing the number of children in the family.

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

According to the last years According to research, inside a woman's ovaries are "oocyte stem cells" that, if properly stimulated, could lead to the creation of an almost infinite number of eggs.

Jonathan Tilly and his colleagues have collected information about these cells from a variety of creatures - from flies to monkeys.

In 2012, they got to 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 mother hundreds or even thousands of children.

Many doctors working in his field express doubts, but Jonathan Tilly is sure that there is a theoretical possibility to activate this mechanism in women.

He hopes to help women whose egg reserves are depleted, including prematurely - for example, due to cancer treatment.

If this hypothetical procedure really turns out to be possible, the imagination paints the following picture: fertility drugs are used to hyperstimulate the ovaries, with numerous follicles simultaneously maturing and ovulating.

This multitude of eggs can be surgically retrieved and fertilized in a test tube, then surgically placed in the wombs of any number of surrogate mothers whose job it is to deliver the fetuses. Each of them can potentially give birth to two or more twins.

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

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 contribute to the elimination of infertility in those who have been diagnosed with such a diagnosis.

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

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

As soon as it comes to the idea that restrictions on female fertility may be lifted, everyone starts to go crazy Jonathan Tilly

Conqueror (and, some believe, serial rapist) Genghis Khan apparently fathered hundreds of children 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 before very old age, and if you start early, the situation can develop according to the model of Genghis Khan," says Jonathan Tilly.

According to him, "male fertility is really unlimited", but assuming that his research will give desired result, then "and women's too."

If such a scenario does materialize, the existence of mothers with countless children will create a sensation, perhaps even more than the 69 children of the Vasilievs.

The question is: how would the public react to multiple fatherhood? If not so violent, is it fair?

“People take unrestricted male fertility for granted – everyone knows we can do that,” Tilly explains. “But as soon as it comes to the idea that restrictions on female fertility might be lifted, everyone starts to go crazy.”

The researcher believes that the issue must be considered in the future, and the equality for which women have deservedly fought for the past few decades should also apply to reproduction issues.

About this Tilly says this: "In fact, there should be no difference between the sexes."

The birth of one baby is a classic of the genre of nature regarding the Crown of Creation, man. However, "thanks" to our intervention in nature and the development of artificial insemination technology, multiple pregnancy is no longer a rarity.

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

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

The most famous, first and only case of the birth of five identical twins is 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 enviable.

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

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

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

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

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

Ten children - until today, it 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 in 37 minutes, naturally, gave birth to 11 kids. All are perfectly healthy boys, six of whom are identical twins. This phenomenon is listed in the Guinness Book of Records. Thus, today 11 children born from one pregnancy is an absolute record.