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Who had the most babies ever? Mrs Vassilyeva, that's who

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While this image was sourced with an initial row of 10 babies, it was further edited to better suit the story. Unfortunately, we were unable to fit the grand total of 69 children in the space provided. (Original image: iStock)
While this image was sourced with an initial row of 10 babies, it was further edited to better suit the story. Unfortunately, we were unable to fit the grand total of 69 children in the space provided. (Original image: iStock)

Meet Mrs Vassilyeva, wife of Feodor Vassilyev and mother of 69 children.

Yes, you read correctly – the woman who holds the Guinness World Record for most prolific mother EVER, is a Russian woman from Shuya who, in a span of 40 years, had 27 births and 69 children. To elaborate exactly how this is possible, Mr Vassilyev wrote in a letter, at 75 years in 1782, that his first wife gave birth to 4 sets of quadruplets, 7 sets of triplets and 16 sets of twins.

Mr Vassilyev married again and continued to procreate but his second wife, unfortunately, only managed to have 2 sets of triplets and 6 sets of twins giving birth to 18 children.

With a total of 87 children, of which 84 actually survived childbirth and grew up to see their father grow old, Mr Vassilyev lived a fruitful, full life, to say the least.

Not much else is known about Mrs Vassilyeva though, except that she is believed to have lived until her mid-70s.

And she may just have had the genetic predisposition to hyper-ovulate.

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Do you know of any interesting world records we can share with the Parent24 readers?Let us know by emailing to chatback@parent24.com and we may just publish them.

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