Record number of births
Elizabeth Greenhill, a resident of Great Britain, was included in the Guinness Book of Records for the largest number of births. This woman gave birth 38 times. And only once did she have twins. Elizabeth died in 1681, leaving behind a “rich” inheritance in the form of 32 daughters and 7 sons.
Express information on the country
The Earth is in third place in terms of distance from the Sun and in fifth place among all the planets in the Solar System in size.
Age– 4.54 billion years
Average radius – 6,378.2 km
Average circumference – 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; the most common: English (56 countries), French (29 countries) and Arabic (24 countries)
Number of nationalities– about 2,000
Climate zones: equatorial, tropical, temperate and arctic (main) + 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 gave birth to 3 children at once.
History also knows cases of multiple pregnancies, when one woman gave birth to 11 children at once. This happened at the end of the twentieth 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 pregnancies (more than 10 embryos), even if it comes to childbirth, 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. After lengthy investigations, doctors came to the conclusion that this anomaly was a side effect of taking fertility pills.
That same year, a woman in Australia gave birth to 9 children - 5 boys and 4 girls. 2 boys were stillborn, the rest of the children lived no more than a week.
At various times in the mid-twentieth 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.
At the beginning of 2009, a resident of the United States, Nadya Suleiman, gave birth to eight children at once. The media gave her the nickname "Octomom". 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 woman was never married and already had six children before these births.
Largest number of children born to one woman
History knows a woman who gave birth to 69 children. The wife of a Russian peasant gave birth 27 times between 1725 and 1765. The woman gave birth to 4 children 4 times, 3 times 7 times and twins 16 times. All but two children survived.
Another fertile mother is Leontina Albina from Chile. She gave birth to 55 children, and the first 5 times 3 babies were born and only boys.
The most numerous father in history
For some reason, all records concerning children are tied to mothers. However, history also knows the father with many children - Yakov Kirillov. From his first marriage he had 57 children, and from his second - 15. In total, it turns out that the man became a father 72 times. For this, in 1755 he was presented to the court at the age of 60.
Record-breaking grandfather
Another man has set a kind of record in the field of childbirth. 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. They, in turn, have already managed to “reward” the grandfather with 33 great-grandchildren.
On July 18, 1994, 63-year-old Italian Rosanna Dalla Corta created 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.
Youngest mother
Lina Medina became the youngest mother in the world in 1939 in Peru. At the age of 5 years and 7 months, this girl gave birth to a 3-pound baby. Lina’s parents noticed strange bloating in the girl’s belly when she was already 7 months old. At first, doctors diagnosed a tumor, but then admitted that the girl was pregnant. Lina's pregnancy proceeded absolutely normally, and in the end the baby was born quite healthy. Lina did not dare to name the reason for her pregnancy or her real father, even after several decades. The earliest born child lived until he was 40 years old, and then died of bone marrow disease.
First pregnant man
On June 29, 2008, the world was shocked by the news that the first pregnant man had successfully given birth to a child. 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 to have sex reassignment surgery. 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 undergo a caesarean section, although Beaty himself claims that the birth occurred naturally. He was met from the maternity hospital by his wife Nancy, who claimed that the family would be absolutely traditional: Biti would play the paternal role, and she would play the maternal role.
The heaviest baby in the world
In 1955, a woman named Carmelina Fedele gave birth to the heaviest baby in the world 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 had ever given birth to a 10-kilogram baby. In 2009, a baby weighing almost 9 kg was born in Indonesia, and in 1992 a baby weighing 7 kg was born in the UK. By comparison, the smallest surviving baby in history weighed 281 grams.
The largest number of children born to a woman in her entire life
The wife of the Russian peasant Fyodor Vasiliev gave birth to and raised 69 children. In just 40 years, she managed to give birth 27 times: 16 times of twins, 7 times of triplets and 4 times of 4 twins. Only two Vasiliev children died in infancy.
Largest number of multiple births per 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 occurred in Kursk: a woman there gave birth to 10 children at one time. No one has yet been able to repeat the record - and the woman herself, understandably, prefers not to try.
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.
Has given birth the most times
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.
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 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).
The father with many children
The most numerous father in the history of our country is considered to be the peasant of the village of Vvedensky, Yakov Kirillov, 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.
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. The wives of the sons and grandchildren of the hero father also live in it. 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. 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 frequent consequence of the artificial insemination procedure, 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, women in adulthood should expect similar surprises during fertilization, since before the onset of menopause the body produces eggs in a regular manner. Mothers of many children who, before conception, stopped taking hormonal drugs or took antibiotics for a long time are not immune from the unexpected possibility of becoming pregnant.
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 such pathologies 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, within the 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. Often, children born overweight subsequently suffer from diabetes mellitus, and allergic diseases are much more common in them. This occurs due to altered 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 should treat it with all responsibility. She must follow a special daily and nutritional regimen, as well as undergo prevention of 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, since in recent 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.