How many children were there in the largest family? Let's go for the record: women who gave birth to the most children in the world 69 years old Russian peasant woman gave birth

According to the Guinness Book of Records, the record for the number of children from one mother belongs to Valentina Vasilyeva, the wife of Russian peasant Fyodor Vasilyev, Jesus Daily says.

She lived for 76 years and from 1725 to 1765 gave birth to 69 children - 16 pairs of twins, 7 triplets and 4 quadruplets. 67 of them survived infancy (one twin did not survive).

It is known that Fyodor Vasiliev was a peasant of the Shuisky district in Russia in the 18th century (now a district of the Ivanovo region of the Russian Federation). But his wife got into the Guinness Book of Records. Valentina is considered the most numerous mother in history.

1 mother and 69 children:

27 births, 69 children

The first mention of the children of Fyodor Vasiliev is found in an issue of The Gentleman’s Magazine for 1783 (No. 53, p. 753, London). It says that this information, “although amazing, deserves complete confidence, for it was conveyed by an English merchant from St. Petersburg directly to his relatives in England; he also mentions that the peasant will be presented to the Empress.”

The second wife gave birth to Vasiliev 18 more children - 6 twins and 2 triplets. Thus, Fyodor Vasiliev was the father of 87 children, of whom at least 82 lived to adulthood.

Unfortunately, there are no reliable photographs of the Vasiliev family. The photo in this article is often published as an illustration of this story, but there is no evidence that it depicts Fedor, Valentina and their children.

Although Valentina Vasilyeva's record large number of children can hardly be considered an indisputable historical fact, it is quite possible that she had a genetic predisposition to hyperovulation (when many eggs are released simultaneously during the ovulation process). This increases the likelihood of multiple pregnancies.

A more detailed analysis of the likelihood that this story is true.

The Guinness Book of Records is full of incredible achievements, but the veracity of one of them raises serious doubts among many people. We are talking about the record of a woman who allegedly gave birth to 69 children in her life. This, if you believe the information that has reached our time, is the wife of a certain peasant Fyodor Vasilyev.

The exact name of this woman, alas, is unknown, although some sources suggest that her name was Valentina. According to the records of the village of Vasilyevskoye, Shuisky district, Valentina Vasilyeva gave birth 27 times, and 16 times she gave birth to twins, seven times to triplets, and four times to quadruplets. Moreover, almost all of her children (67 of 69) survived early infancy.

As the story goes, Fyodor lived with Valentina until she could bear children, and when she lost this opportunity, being already an elderly man, he married a second time - and his new wife bore him 18 more children.

The main source of information about this history is the monastic records. From the records it follows that in 1782 Fyodor Vasiliev was the father of 87 children. At that time, Fedor was already 75 years old, and of all the children, 82 remained alive.

Of course, despite the fact that this record is documented, it is not possible to verify the accuracy of this information. So, Adam Hadhazy from the BBC service conducted an investigation and found out that Valentina Vasilyeva had to be pregnant for 18 years in order to give birth 27 times. At the same time, it is rather doubtful that she could give birth to two, three or even four children without any complications.

If we talk about what were the chances of a successful birth for a woman at the end of the 18th century, the chances were small, even if we were talking about a normal pregnancy with one child. Today's medicine allows premature babies to be delivered (and triplets and quadruplets are almost always born prematurely), but even today any pregnancy and childbirth is a risk to a woman's health. What can we say about the health of a woman who survived 27 births in a Russian village in the 18th century?

Of course, experts recognize the rare, perhaps even unique, opportunity to give birth to twins and triplets multiple times. But here another question arises - how did the peasant manage to feed such a horde of children, most of whom were the same age.

One way or another, Vasilyeva’s record is indeed included in the Guinness Book of Records, and it is very doubtful that anyone could somehow “outdo” it in the near future without the intervention of genetic engineering. Another thing is paternity. The fact of Fyodor Vasiliev’s paternity of 87 children, in principle, is beyond doubt. He is even compared to Genghis Khan, who became the father of several hundred children. Today, according to genetics, his descendants are considered to be about 16 million residents of various countries around the globe.

As for Valentina Vasilyeva, this story still does not find any refuting or confirming additional sources of information. Although, if you look at the mothers of eight children, there are even more doubts.

Illustration copyright Getty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Something from the realm of fantasy. Just imagine, 69 children? Come on!" - says James Segars, director of the Division of Research in Reproduction and Women's Health at 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.

Illustration copyright Getty Image caption In Britain, only 1.5% of pregnancies are twins, and the probability of triplets is only 0.0003% of cases.

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 doesn't seem counterintuitive - especially since triplets and quadruplets are usually born at an earlier stage.

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

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

Another question is whether this is possible in reality.

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

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

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

Illustration copyright Getty Image caption Most women cannot get pregnant after 45 years of age. Is there enough time to have 69 children?

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. During intrauterine development, a girl embryo can have up to seven million immature eggs; by birth, about a million remain.

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

An adult woman retains only a few hundred thousand eggs. Of these many cells located 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."

Illustration copyright Getty Image caption At birth, women have only about a million eggs, and their number is constantly decreasing

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

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

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

Survive childbirth

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

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

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

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

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, the availability of modern obstetric care (eg, medically determined caesarean sections) has reduced maternal mortality.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A bunch of backbiters

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

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

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

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 alarm 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 allegedly 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).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 if we assume that his research will give the desired result, then “women’s fertility 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.”

The Guinness Book of World Records mentions the story of a woman who lived in the 18th century and gave birth to 69 children. Valentina Vasilyeva was the first wife of the peasant Fyodor Vasilyev, originally from Shuya in the Russian Empire.

The couple lived in the 18th century, from 1707 to 1782, it is believed that Valentina lived to be 76 years old and gave birth to 69 children during her life, more than any other woman in known history. One set of twins died in infancy, but her remaining 67 children lived to adulthood.

By the way, their father married a second time and another wife gave birth to 18 more children from him: 12 twins and 6 triplets, 15 of them survived, so in total the man was the father of 82 children.

The Guinness Book of Records calls Valentina Vasilyeva the most prolific mother and no one has managed to surpass the record. According to the chronicle, she gave birth 27 times:

She gave birth to twins 16 times;

Triplets were born 7 times;

4 times quadruplet.

It turns out that she became pregnant once every three years, this could have made our heroine’s life much easier, but it is worth considering that a woman is not able to conceive a child throughout her entire life, but only from early adolescence to approximately 45 years of age.

Apparently, Valentina was a wonderful exception to the rule and her fertility lasted 40 years - from 1725 to 1765.

The BBC editors were interested in this case, which, as journalists suggested, could be on the front pages of all newspapers of that time. They did the math and it turned out that Vasilyeva probably carried the twins for 37 weeks, the triplets for 32 weeks, and the quadruplets for 30 weeks.

If you add these numbers together, you get 936 weeks, there are 52 weeks in a year, if you divide the previous result by this number, you get 18 years. Thus, Valentina Vasilyeva spent almost two decades of her life in a special situation.

One can only imagine how life was in the Russian outback in the 18th century, the achievements of modern medicine were inaccessible, any pregnancy was dangerous. In addition, the Vasiliev family was a peasant family. They had to work in the fields and at the same time take care of the children, providing everyone with clothes and food.

Considering all of the above, it is difficult to believe in the reality of what happened; the scientific community doubts the reliability of the information. However, there are historical documents that can prove that the couple actually had 69 children.

So, on February 27, 1782, the Nikolsky Monastery sent documents to Moscow confirming that Fyodor Vasiliev had 82 surviving children in two marriages.

In 1783, the popular English magazine “The gentleman's magazine” published an article about the Vasiliev family, the author considered such super-fertility to be the merit of either the husband, or the wife, or both, but it is more likely that the reason was Fedor himself, because history repeated itself with second wife.

In 1878, a note about the Vasiliev family appeared in The Lancet, one of the oldest medical publications in the world. The note stated that the French Academy of Sciences was going to investigate this case, so it made a request to the then Russian Academy of Sciences, but the French were informed that the Vasilievs lived in Moscow and they were under the protection of the Government of the Russian Empire.

This is love ❤😬

According to the Guinness Book of Records, the record for the number of children from one mother belongs to Valentina Vasilyeva, the wife of Russian peasant Fyodor Vasilyev, Jesus Daily says.

She lived for 76 years and from 1725 to 1765 gave birth to 69 children - 16 pairs of twins, 7 triplets and 4 quadruplets. 67 of them survived infancy (one twin did not survive).

It is known that Fyodor Vasiliev was a peasant of the Shuisky district in Russia in the 18th century (now a district of the Ivanovo region of the Russian Federation). But his wife got into the Guinness Book of Records. Valentina is considered the most numerous mother in history.

1 mother and 69 children:

27 births, 69 children

The first mention of the children of Fyodor Vasiliev is found in an issue of The Gentleman’s Magazine for 1783 (No. 53, p. 753, London). It says that this information, “although amazing, deserves complete confidence, for it was conveyed by an English merchant from St. Petersburg directly to his relatives in England; he also mentions that the peasant will be presented to the Empress.”

The same figures are given in I. N. Boltin’s work on Russian history in 1788 and in A. P. Bashutsky’s book “Panorama of St. Petersburg” in 1834.

Some sources questioned the veracity of this information. Apparently, no one seriously checked the source of this information, so it is unlikely that it will ever be possible to establish the truth.

Nevertheless, data about Vasiliev’s children is included in the Guinness Book of Records.

Interestingly, Fyodor had even more children than his wife with her 27 births!

The second wife gave birth to Vasiliev 18 more children - 6 twins and 2 triplets. Thus, Fyodor Vasiliev was the father of 87 children, of whom at least 82 lived to adulthood

Unfortunately, there are no reliable photographs of the Vasiliev family. The photo in this article is often published as an illustration of this story, but there is no evidence that it depicts Fedor, Valentina and their children.

Although Valentina Vasilyeva's record large number of children can hardly be considered an indisputable historical fact, it is quite possible that she had a genetic predisposition to hyperovulation (when many eggs are released simultaneously during the ovulation process). This increases the likelihood of multiple pregnancies.