How many siblings do you have? Could you imagine sharing a house (or bathroom!) with 68 brothers
and sisters? Well, the Guinness World Records does mention a lady who lived in the 18th
century that gave birth to 69 kids!
Valentina Vassilyeva was the first wife of a peasant named Feodor Vassilyev from Shuya,
Russia. The family lived in the 1700s, between 1707-1782. Valentina is believed to have lived
until the age of 76. And during her life, she’d given birth a whopping 69 times! That’s
more than any other woman ever. One pair of twins didn’t make it through infancy, but
the remaining 67 did grow up to be adults.
Their father, by the way, married a second time and had 18 kids (12 twins and 6 triplets)
with his 2nd wife. 15 of them survived, so he was a father to 82 kids!
The Guinness World Records calls Valentina “the most prolific mother ever” as her
record is still unbeaten. According to reports, she’d gone through 27 labors: 16 of them
resulted in twins, 7 in triplets, and 4 in quadruplets. Yes, that’s 4 babies at the
same time…4 times!
Now, how is that possible? Did she just get pregnant once every 3 years? That would’ve
made things easier for Vassilyeva, but let’s remember, a woman isn’t fertile her entire
life, only from her early teens to about age 45. Apparently, Valentina was a lucky exception
and had 40 years of fertility that lasted from 1725 to 1765. Doing the math, she’d
have around 1.5 years for every pregnancy. This may seem enough at first glance, impossible
at second glance, and really dubious at third glance, so let’s do some more calculations.
You might know that an average pregnancy takes 40 weeks. However, the more children you have
in the womb, the more likely it is that your labor will come earlier. According to the
BBC, who became interested in the matter believing it would’ve been all over the tabloids in
18th-century Russia, did some math for you. They estimated that Vassilyeva could’ve
had 37-week pregnancies with the twins, 32-week pregnancies with her triplets, and 30-week
pregnancies with the quadruplets.
If you add all this up, you get 936 weeks. There are 52 weeks in a year, so if you divide
the resulting numbers, you get 18 years. That means Vassilyeva spent almost 2 decades of
her life with a bun in the oven! That’s a lot of time craving pickles and ice cream…
While theoretically, Vassilyeva had enough time to carry all the babies, there are a
few more facts that make reproduction experts question the whole thing:
First of all, although there’s such a thing as multiple ovulation, when a woman’s body
releases several eggs per cycle, it isn’t the most common thing in the world and only
happens in approximately 5-10% of all of a woman’s cycles. There’s still a chance
Valentina was just a unique phenomenon. A really special one, by the way, if she managed
to avoid the vanishing twin syndrome. This is a phenomenon that happens when one of the
twins, or several in the case of multiples, gets absorbed by the placenta, a stronger
fetus, or even the mother’s body. The syndrome is pretty common in multi-fetal pregnancies
and occurs in 21-30% of cases.
Secondly, pregnancy and labor is a challenging thing for a woman’s body, and when pregnancies
go one-by-one less than 18 months apart, the risk of complications increases both for the
mom and for the baby. A woman’s body just doesn’t have enough time to recover from
all the changes caused by the previous pregnancy and restore all the nutrients it lost. Now,
if 2 back-to-back pregnancies are already risky, imagine having 27 of them without any
time to rest!
Lastly, imagine life in the 18th-century Russian countryside. They didn’t have the luxury
of modern medicine. At that time, every pregnancy was a risk. Add the fact that they were also
peasants and had to work and take care of the children at the same time, making sure
to have enough food and clothes for the whole crowd.
Considering all that, how could anyone believe this really happened? The scientific community
is doubtful, but there are historical records that can serve as evidence that this couple
really did have 69 kids. More specifically, the Nikolskiy Monastery sent a document to
Moscow on February 27, 1782 that proved Feodor Vassilyev had 82 living children from 2 marriages.
This document was published in 1834 in the book The Saint-Petersburg Panorama.
In 1783, The Gentleman’s Magazine published an article regarding the Vassilyev’s case.
The author said that this super fertility may come from “the man singly, or the woman,
or both jointly,” but it’s more likely that the reason was Feodor himself since the
story repeated with his second wife too.
In 1878, an article about the family was published in The Lancet, one of the world’s oldest
medical journals. It claimed that the French Academy of Sciences tried to investigate the
case and addressed the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg. They were told the Vassilyevs
lived in Moscow and received favors from the government.
Records and articles are all good, but a picture is worth a thousand words. So it’s natural
that people want to see a photograph of that impressive family. There is one popular image
that’s often thought to represent the Vassilyevs, but this is actually a mistake. That picture
shows the family of American Joseph F. Smith. He was married 6 times and became the father
of 45 biological and 5 adopted children.
And if you think huge families are a thing of the past, you’d be mistaken. Michelle
Duggar didn’t give birth to 69 kids, but 19 is still an impressive number, right? Together
with husband Jim Bob, they became famous in the US thanks to a TLC show called 19 Kids
and Counting.
Christi Cason and her husband Dave from California have 17 kids together, and Christi gave birth
to a total of 18 kids so far, one from her other marriage. The family also starred in
a TV show that gave an insight of what it’s like to have over a dozen of kids. For example,
they have to do laundry seven times a day, and even the smallest grocery shopping involves
at least two shopping carts.
Bringing Up Bates is a reality TV show that’s still running and tells about the life of
Bates family that have 19 kids. Giving birth to them must have been quite a challenge to
their mom Kelly Jo because there are no twins or triplets in the family, and so she had
to go into labor 19 times! One of the frequently asked questions to the family from their fans
is how many pizzas it takes to feed them all. The answer the family shared in their blog
is 9 large single topping pizzas!
The biggest family in the UK is that of Sue and Noel Redford. The couple has 21 kids and
lives in a 10-bedroom house to fit that huge family, even though the two older kids don’t
live with them anymore. The couple had planned to have just 3 kids, but apparently they just
couldn’t stop. And they’re already grandparents to their oldest daughter’s 3 children.
Finally, the largest family in the world has 180 members. 74-year-old Ziona Chana lives
in India in a house with 100 bedrooms with his 39 wives, 94 children, 14 daughters-in-law,
and 34 grandchildren. Even though none of his many wives gave birth to an astonishingly
huge amount of kids, Ziona is still a father of 94, and that’s pretty impressive! He
believes it’s both an honor and a responsibility for him to take care of such a huge family.
So, do you believe the story of the woman who gave birth to 69 kids or are you still
skeptical about it? Let me know down in the comments! If you learned something new today,
then give this video a like and share it with a friend. But – hey! – don’t go anywhere
just yet! We have over 2,000 cool videos for you to check out. All you have to do is pick
the left or right video, click on it, and enjoy! Stay on the Bright Side of life!