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 indisputable historical fact, it is possible that she had a genetic predisposition to hyperovulation (when many eggs are released at the same time during the process of ovulation). This increases the likelihood of multiple pregnancies.

A woman who lived in Russia in the 18th century set a “world record” by giving birth to 69 children from 1725 to 1765. This is Valentina Vasilyeva from Shuya, who was the first wife of the peasant Fyodor Vasilyev. Of these, she had 16 twins, 7 triplets, and 4 quadruplets. In total, there were 27 births. And in total, 67 children survived in infancy.

Fyodor Vasiliev and his second wife had 18 children (of which: twins - 6, triplets - 2). The first report about this peasant and his family was published in 1783 in the London magazine. Then it was written about him in 1834 in the book “Panorama of St. Petersburg”. The story is truly amazing. But was she really there? The online publication Yenata.blitz.bg suggests looking into this.

Dubious record?

Fyodor Vasiliev and his first wife Valentina lived in Russia, in the city of Shuya, between 1707 and 1782. According to some reports, Valentina died when she was 76 years old. Of her 69 children, only two died in infancy. According to the Guinness Book of Records, this woman is the most fertile mother.

If you try to count the years in which she could give birth, it could be the period from 1725 to 1765. That is, her 27 pregnancies could have occurred over a period of life equal to forty years. At first glance this may seem possible to some, but at second glance it seems doubtful. Yenata.blitz.bg offers to perform a series of calculations.

A whole 18 years?

It is known that in general case Pregnancy in humans takes 40 weeks. However, the more embryos in the mother's womb, the greater the likelihood that the birth will be premature. According to some estimates, the peasant woman Vasilyeva could have had 37-week pregnancies with twins, 32-weeks with triplets, and 30-weeks with quadruplets.

The total is 936 weeks. One year includes 52 weeks. Dividing 936 by 52 equals 18 years. Thus, Valentina Vasilyeva had to spend 18 years in a state of pregnancy. Isn't that a very impressive figure? If we take into account the opinion of experts, they question this assumption.

Reasons to doubt

Theoretically, one can talk about the physiological characteristics inherent in some women, which could also be present in a fertile peasant woman. And they need to be taken into account:

• Firstly, there is a phenomenon called multiple ovulation, when several eggs mature during one cycle. Although this is not the most common occurrence, approximately 5 - 10% of periods are. This phenomenon could be observed in Valentina. But at the same time, she still managed to avoid the “twin syndrome,” when one of the fetuses is absorbed by the other or by the mother’s body itself. In multiple pregnancies, it is observed in 25-30% of cases.
• Secondly, both pregnancy and childbirth are always a certain stress for the female body. If pregnancy follows one after another with an interval of less than 18 months, then the risk of complications for both the woman and the child is quite high. The mother does not have enough time to recover from her previous childbearing. Thus, if even two pregnancies in a row are risky, then what about 27?
• Thirdly, experts doubt that with such an intensity of the birth of children, even in modern world, with today's development of medicine, the probability of survival of both mother and offspring is not high. Obviously, in a provincial town in the 18th century it was much smaller. At that time, any pregnancy was accompanied by risks.

Children still need to be fed

At the same time, one should not lose sight of the fact that peasant women, as a rule, were burdened with hard work and did not have enough time to care for children. At the same time, to feed such a crowd, a large amount of food was needed, plus clothing, and a place in the home to accommodate it. It is unlikely that an ordinary peasant family could provide such a number of offspring for everyone.

Publications about an unusual family

However, there are a number of publications that can speak in favor of the described phenomenon. large family Vasiliev peasants. These include, for example, the following:

1. In 1782, a letter was sent from the Nikolsky Monastery to Moscow, which stated that Fyodor Vasiliev had children from two marriages. His second wife had 18 children (12 twins and 6 triplets). These data were published in 1834 in the St. Petersburg Panorama.
2. In 1783, an article was published in Gentleman magazine about the unusual Vasiliev family. Its author reasoned that such “extraordinary fertility” could be explained by a phenomenon inherent in both men and women, or both at once.
3. One of the French publications said that the French Academy of Sciences became interested in this family and contacted the St. Petersburg Academy to clarify the issue.

In conclusion, it should be noted that the family depicted in the main photo is by no means the Vasilyevs, as one might think. In this photo you can see Joseph Smith's family. He was co-chairman of one religious organization, which is the largest branch of Mormonism. He was married six times and had 45 biological and five adopted children.

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 it be possible modern medicine 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 modern science a woman could theoretically mother 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 there seems to be nothing contradictory about this common sense– especially considering that triplets and quadruplets are usually born more than early stages.

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 becoming pregnant is about 1% per month," says Valerie Baker, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Faculty of Medicine Stanford University.

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

U adult woman Only a few hundred thousand eggs are retained. Of these many cells found inside the follicles, approximately 400 reach maturity and participate in ovulation, providing their carrier with approximately 30 years of potential childbearing.

The last eggs that ovulate late in a woman's reproductive years are at much higher risk of mutations, genetic abnormalities, and other problems associated with aging.

Often, pregnancies involving such atypical eggs end spontaneously.

"Most women are unable to get pregnant after they reach 42-44 years of age," says James Segars. "However, sometimes this happens closer to 50 years of age."

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 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 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 could theoretically lead to the appearance of large quantity children, but the health risks are high

The fact that childbirth is a burden for a woman gives the greatest reason to doubt the veracity of the story about 69 children - especially considering that it happened a couple of centuries ago in the Russian outback.

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

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

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

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

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

"Previously, any pregnancy was a risk to the mother's life," explains Segars. 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 technologies fertilization makes it theoretically possible to have an infinite number of children

Generally similar situations happen 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 who is ready to life like this. “Just imagine how stressful it is!” - says Valerie Baker.

Segars echoes her: “You could go crazy! I can’t imagine what it was like to live in this house.”

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

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

Brave New World

So what is the actual limit? The answer to this question is not so simple, since the “natural” restrictions that apply to the offspring of an individual woman can now be circumvented.

Firstly, the development of assisted reproductive technologies (ART), which appeared in the late 1970s, led to a surge in the birth rate of twins, triplets, and so on (Nadya Suleman used ART).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 achievements will contribute to equalizing 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.”

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.

More detailed analysis the likelihood that the story is true, .