How many children were born to one woman maximum. The most numerous twins born at the same time

The purpose of a woman is motherhood. And almost all women in the world go through this difficult and at the same time joyful path - the birth and upbringing of children. For some, this path is accompanied by interesting records.

1. Mother who gave birth to 2 pairs of different-colored twins

Alison Spooner, from the British city of Fleet, gave birth to two daughters in 2001. Lauren looks like her mother - she has red hair, White skin And Blue eyes. And the dark-skinned brunette Hiley looks like her father, the Indian Dean.

Doctors then said that this happens once every few years. However, the second pair of twins that were born to the Spooners also has different colour skin.

The younger girls had breathing problems when they were born. So they were placed in separate pressure chambers, says Dean. - Then we saw them together. And they realized that they had created a natural phenomenon again.

Mia and Leah were born on November 13, 2008, for a few weeks ahead of time. The first months I spent with my mother in the hospital. Currently, healthy girls are already at home. In the family they are called Marshmallow and Chocolate.

I think no one doubts that our family is special, says Alison.

2. The mother who gave birth to the tiniest baby in the world.

Mahajabeen Sheikh gave birth to Ramasha Rahman on September 19, 2004. The child weighed 243.81 grams at birth, his body length was only 10 cm. Ramash became the smallest newborn in the world. The baby was born at 25 weeks pregnant.

Prior to Ramashi's birth, the tiniest child to survive the birth was Madeline Mann, born in 1989, who weighed 37 grams more than Ramashi.

Ramashi has a twin sister and her birth weight was 567 grams.

According to the Lyol ​​University Medical Center, the girl is now alive and well.

3. The oldest mom in the world

Indian Rayo Devi Lohan (Rajo Devi Lohan) became the first mother at 70 years old, after 40 years of unsuccessful attempts to get pregnant. The child was born in 2008 and feels great, of course, his mother is going to breastfeed him up to 3 years!

The most mother of many children in history

The largest mother in the world is our compatriot, the wife of a native of the Shuya district, a peasant Fyodor Vasiliev. The first twins in their family were born in 1725 and then for forty years the great woman in labor gave her husband 69 children and never children were born one at a time. In a peasant family, 17 twins, 7 triplets and 4 quadruplets were born. The number of twins is also a world record.

5. The oldest mother who gave birth to twins

The irresistible desire to have a son turned into double happiness for 70-year-old Omkari Panwar! She gave birth to twins. In order to artificially conceive a child, the family sold and mortgaged almost all their property. The woman already had two daughters and five grandchildren, but 77-year-old husband Charan Singh Panwar insisted on an heir and as a result received as many as two.

But Carol Horlock set a world record for fertility as a surrogate mother (Carol is now 43 years old). For 13 years, she was able to endure and give birth to 12 children, including triplets. In an interview with one of the TV shows, the woman admitted that she planned to become a surrogate mother only once, but then she could not stop. Of the pluses, she notes the material side (still - 25-30 thousand dollars for a child), but the minuses include morning sickness, bed rest, stretch marks and caesarean section.

Carol admits that surrogacy has become a real job for her.

7. The youngest mother in the world

The youngest mother in the history of medical practice was Lina Medina, she gave birth at the age of 5 years 7 months. The reason for going to the hospital was a suspicion of a tumor and an increase in the abdominal cavity. But what was the surprise of the doctors and the girl's parents when it turned out that she was 7 months pregnant. One and a half months later, by caesarean section, Lina gave birth to a boy. Doctors studied this phenomenon in detail, it turned out that the girl had reached puberty by the age of 4!

8. Gave birth to 8 children at a time

But Nadya Denise Doud-Suleman Gutierrez (Nadya Denise Doud-Suleman Gutierrez) in January 2009 gave birth to 8 children at once. This was only the second case with a successful outcome of the birth of eight children at once, before that this happened in the United States in 1998. It should be noted that the mother of many children is unemployed, the kids were conceived artificially, and 6 more babies are waiting for her at home!

9. World record for time difference between births

Elizabeth Ann Buttle has set the world record for birth difference. This difference was 41 years! Her first child, a girl, was born on May 19, 1956, when Elizabeth was 19 years old, she gave birth to her second at 60. The boy was named Joseph.

10. First pregnant man in the world

Looking at this stately man, it is unlikely that the thought will come to mind that once he was a woman. But this is a fact: Thomas was born a woman and her name was Tracy Lagondino (Tracy LaGondino), but at the age of 10 he realized that it was not him and set the goal of his life to become a man. 8 years have passed and Thomas seriously began to fulfill his cherished dream with the help of many operations and hormone therapy, oddly enough, Thomas left his feminine dignity untouched.

The world's smallest mother has given birth to her third child, despite doctors' warnings that it would threaten her life.

Stacey Herald, 36, a native of Dry Ridge, Kentucky, USA, is only 72 cm tall. Doctors immediately told her that a fully formed fetus could easily kill her, because. her internal organs too small, but despite this, Stacey has already given birth to three children.

Stacy suffers from osteogenesis and spends most of her time in a wheelchair, so all duties fall on the shoulders of the father of the family, whose height is more than 1.73 meters.

19 children

Michelle Duggar is a celebrity. She gave birth to nine girls and ten boys, and named her children with J. She taught all of them at home - such a motley and crowded class turned out.

Michelle had several twins, but she gave birth on average once every 15 months. The Duggars have their own system of education and training. Children are united in small groups, which are called systems of comrades: older children help the younger ones do their homework and teach them about housekeeping.

Popular

Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, her husband, raised the children religiously. At Christmas, instead of "Merry Christmas," they wished each other "Jesus' birthday." Michelle and Jim want their grandchildren to grow up as close to them as possible, and their children make love only in marriage. Many descendants already have children of their own.

https://www.instagram.com/duggarfam

"Octomama"

14 children

Sad story Nadia Suliman, who is called an octoma. She is famous for the fact that in January 2009 she gave birth to eight children (octuplets)! After giving birth to six ... In the United States, this is the second time in history when eight children are born alive.

Despite the fact that Nadia had no job, no stable income, no family that could help her (she lived only at the expense of government programs help), she not only gave birth to eight children, she conceived them with the help of IVF, although at first she did not admit it.

Nadia (real name Natalie) was born in California, she was the only child of Angela Suliman, a school teacher, and Edward Suliman, a restaurant owner in Iraq. Natalie was educated and worked in a psychiatric hospital for three years.

At 21, Natalie married Marco Gutierrez, but divorced him four years later. Marco admitted in an interview that the fault was that they could not have children. In 2001, Nadia gave birth to her first son through IVF, in 2002 - a daughter, three subsequent pregnancies gave her four more children.

Nadia's act caused a public outcry not only because of her irresponsible attitude towards the future of her children, but also because so many children would burden the taxpayers. Although Suliman repeated that she would be able to provide for the children and planned to get a master's degree, she never did. In September 1999, during a strike, she suffered a back injury and from 2002 to 2008 lived on disability benefits.

When she brought her babies home in 2009, she did not expect to face such aggression from the public: vandals tore the child seat out of her car, threatened her with violence.

Nadia many times got into scandalous and dubious situations: for example, at some point there were rumors that she starred in pornography. In various interviews, she either stated that she was “trying to be the perfect mother”, then she said that she “hates children” and they “disgust her”. In 2019, when the octuplets celebrated their tenth birthday, she said in an interview with the Australian program Sunday Night that although she was "totally young, dumb, irresponsible selfish", now she does not regret any of her children and says that " children are her life.

The first wife of Fyodor Vasilyev

69 children

Unfortunately, history has not preserved the name of this woman, only her husband. The peasant Fyodor Vasilyev lived from 1725 to 1765, and his first wife (who lived to the age of 76) bore him 69 children (16 pairs of twins, 7 triplets and 4 ... hmm ... "set" of twins of 4 children each). The most amazing thing is that 67 of them survived infancy.

Apparently, Fedor was to blame for everything, because his second wife bore him 18 children: 6 pairs of twins and two triplets. Information about the Vasiliev family is included in the Guinness Book of Records, but many are still skeptical about the veracity of this story. The first published information about them appeared in the British magazine The Gentleman’s Magazine: it seems like one merchant from St. Petersburg told his relatives in England ... In general, yes, there are many doubts about this story.

"The Case of Gravat"

62 children

If there were twins in your family, then your chance to give birth to twins also increases - this is a hereditary trait. A peasant woman from Tuscany, who lived more than a hundred years ago, had a twin sister. And her mother is one of the triplets. It seems her fate was sealed.

Having married a man named Gravata, she gave birth to a daughter. One. An amazing thing. The Spaniard must have even felt relieved, but early. The daughter was followed by six (!) boys, whom she gave birth not in turn, but at one time.

Then four more boys and a couple of triplets. Four again. Then she had the opportunity to "rest" a bit, when she then gave birth to several "single" children. At the end of her strange “career” (we are by no means ironic about the plight of this woman, who is very sorry), she gave birth to four boys.

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.

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.

Most father of many children 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.

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 can theoretically become a mother for more children than we ever thought possible

"Something from the realm of fantasy. Well, imagine 69 children? Come on!" says James Segars, director of reproductive and women's health research at 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.

Image copyright getty Image caption In the UK only 1.5% of pregnancies are twins and only 0.0003% chance of triplets

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

At first it seems that there is nothing contrary to common sense in this - especially considering that triplets and quadruplets are usually born at earlier 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.

Image copyright getty Image caption Most women cannot get pregnant after the age of 45. Is there enough time to give birth to 69 children?

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 the process of intrauterine development, a female embryo can have up to seven million immature eggs, and about a million remain at birth.

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

An adult woman retains only a few hundred thousand eggs. 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.”

Image copyright getty Image caption Women only have about a million eggs at birth, and the number is steadily declining.

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."

Image copyright SPL Image caption The birth of multiple twins or triplets could theoretically lead to a large number of children in the family, but the health risks are high.

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, the availability of modern obstetric care (such as medically induced caesarean sections) has 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. With multiple births (for example, with 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 varieties multiple pregnancies: either several eggs that leave the ovaries as a result of ovulation are successfully fertilized by spermatozoa (the 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.

Image copyright SPL Image caption Modern fertilization technologies make it theoretically possible to have an infinite number of children

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).

Image copyright SPL Image caption According to one researcher, there may someday be a way to activate a woman's ability to produce many times more eggs.

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.

Image copyright SPL Image caption Men are capable of becoming fathers to hundreds of children. What if science gives women the same opportunity?

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."

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

But this, as they say, is not the limit. A greater number of twins have been born 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 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 in 4.4 million people. Only once before in New York were born six babies at once. It happened in 1997.

In October 2010, in the Italian city of Benevento, near Naples, 30-year-old Carmela Oliva had 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 a caesarean section. Children were born with 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 transplanting more than three embryos.

Setuples

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

7 twins were born 8 weeks prematurely - on January 14, 1998 - to 40-year-old Hasna Mohammed Humayr ( Saudi Arabia). Among them, 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 dreamed of giving her husband a son and was taking pregnancy-stimulating drugs. The result is four sons and three daughters.

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

Eights

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

The mother of the newborn eight then lived with her other children and parents in the suburbs of Los Angeles - in the small town of Whittier. The family already grew up six kids aged two to seven years, among whom there is a pair of twins.

The children's grandmother left her job and devoted herself entirely to her daughter's family. And grandfather, to help Nadia, 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 missed her brothers and sisters so much. In addition, the eccentric American said that she was following the example of her idol, the large Angelina Jolie. A few years ago, Suleman even had plastic surgery to look like an actress.

Eight was conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF). Doctors in such cases insist on the reduction (removal) of a part of the embryos. After all, such a number of them can adversely affect both the health of the mother and the health of future children.

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

The delivery by caesarean section was nine weeks ahead of schedule. A team of 46 doctors who took birth was expecting the birth of seven babies, which, although not often, does happen. However, there were eight newborns - six boys and two girls - and they are all quite healthy. The weight of babies is from 700 g to 1.9 kg. Seven of them immediately breathed on their own and were bottle fed. The whole family was discharged from the maternity hospital home in just a week.

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 - here the largest 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

The largest number of children born to one mother

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

Of our contemporaries, the most prolific mother is Leontina Albina of San Antonio, Chile, who gave birth to 55 children between 1943-81. As a result of the first 5 pregnancies, she gave birth to triplets, and exclusively male.

The woman who gave birth the most times

The record 38 births are said to have been given to Elizabeth Greenhill of Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire, UK. She had 39 children - 32 daughters and 7 sons - and died in 1681.

The largest father

The largest father in history is the Russian peasant of the village of Vvedensky Yakov Kirillov, who in 1755 was presented to the court in connection with this (he was then 60 years old). The first wife of a peasant 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.