The Record for the Most Babies Born to One Woman is 69
Today I found out that the record for most babies born to one woman is 69. Yes, you read that correctly 69!
Who was this amazing woman with apparently a womb of steel and a vagina her husband just couldn’t say no too? We don’t really know. (anti-climactic I know) Her husband is the one whose name has lived on because of her crazy baby making skills. (Feminists of the world unite!) She was the first wife of Feodor Vassilyev, a peasant from Shuya, Russia who lived from 1707-1782. We can only speculate how many fire safety ordinances he violated by housing all his progeny in his little peasant sized hovel. Presumably, at some point they also had to choose to feed on the weak ones in order to provide food for the strong.
How did she manage this feat given most women only have about 30-ish years of baby making ability? She gave birth to sixteen pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets; so basically a veritable baby making factory who scoffs at “one at a timing” it. Amazingly, 67 of her children survived infancy, which was a remarkable rate for the day. No word on whether either of her breasts could say the same.
Now, let’s just take a step back here. She was the “first wife” of Feodor Vassilyev. Seeming to imply he married again. (Polygamy was not generally practiced at that time in Russia; so we can assume he was only married to one lady at a time.) So this guy goes out; shuns wearing tighty whities (presumably); gets married; invests all his money in a baby naming book; then apparently takes every second his wife isn’t pregnant as a personal affront to his manhood; then she presumably kills herself (I mean really, wouldn’t you?) and he then somehow manages to swindle another woman into wanting to be his wife and take on raising his clan? Can you imagine remembering all 67 of their names? Especially considering that woman would also need to deal with the fact that many of them came in identical sets. I don’t know about you, but my parents have to go through every one of my siblings names before they can correctly say mine when they want to get my attention. That must have taken forever in that family.
Then, of course, after old Feodor Vassilyev swindles her into becoming his second wife, he presumably decided to use her vagina as a clown car too. *shudders*
The really amazing thing of it is that with the 67 surviving kids, if each of them had 2 kids (a low number for back then, but we’ll be conservative here) and each of their kids had 2 kids and so on, and we assume about 25-ish years between generations. Then this couple currently has around 70,000 descendants!
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This article is poorly written. That is all.
I agree! The fourth paragraph is truly a mess.
Phew
Dude I thought it was just me who only notices these things, not the mention the omissions of the mother (s’) names in question.
Does it matter? Lol
The above comment is poorly written, lacks examples, and isn’t constructive. That is all.
I don’t really see how that comment is poorly written, here are the examples you wanted though:
“Feminists of the world unit!” Should be unite.
“That must have taken forever in that family.” Shouldn’t be in it’s own sentence it should be after a comma or a semi-colon.
Also the attempts at humour aren’t funny. You should have stuck to just telling us the facts because it’s a pretty interesting article really.
That is all.
You need to work on your own grammar sunshine. The use of It’s is incorrect as it is an abbreviation of the aforementioned. Drop the apostrophe for possession.
Possession wouldn’t make sense in the context it was written it. Do try to make sure you can read before you start criticizing other people’s grammar.
When you get confused on which ‘its’ to use, here’s an easy way to figure it out.
Does ‘it is’ make sense in the sentence? Then use ‘its’! The word “it’s” doesn’t signify possession, it signifies the contraction ‘it is’.
@Loud Sigh:
OF COURSE possession makes sense in this context.
As Nick said before, ‘it’s’ is totally wrong because it’s an abbreviation of ‘it is’ . Now, replace ‘it’s’ with ‘it is’ in the sentence. Does it make sense? NO. Congratulations.
Yours, an eight-grade student from germany.
Something tells me Russian families tend to be large, considering my great grandfather immigrated from Russia and was one of 29 children. His father had two wives- one that gave birth to 15 children, the other to 14 children. I believe his family had a farm or such.
Come on. I mean, you’re poor and there’s no tv. What else are you going to do for entertainment?
Good Read. I’ll look forward to your next piece
i think it is possible for a woman to give birth to this many children if all pregnancies are live births. my mother gave birth, natural birth to thirteen by design. by design, i mean, at least two years spacing between each child so as not to be considered multiple births, as multiple births were almost unheard of at the time of no legal birth control. if she had had five, by chance, instead of one by design every two years, she would have had sixty-five children instead of thirteen as we are today. sixty-nine would have just meant one more pregnancy by chance. with god, all things are possible. happy mother’s day, moms.
Great Read. I’ll look forward to your next article
I think my daughter is doing something similar. Good luck to you.
I think your mom is doing something similar.
“Also the attempts at humour aren’t funny.”
Maybe to you. You must remember, though: humor is subjective. What isn’t funny to you may be funny to others, and vice versa.
Do not act like your comedy tastes are fact, because they’re not; they’re opinion.
That is 2 meny Kids how whould you take care of All OF THEM
well…i started reading the comments above…but lost taste after comment three so anyway…
i liked it. it was informative and didn’t put me to sleep at the same time! 😀 (hates reading)
i found out about this miracle woman in biology class so i was like…hmm….why not use my pc time wisely?
anyway…who cares what the control freaks above think? (no offense to anyone) i suck at writing too!
=] ‘that is all’
i don’t like the insults slamming the authors method of writing, if she wants to put things in her articles to try and keep the reader interested, even if the article is already interesting. i found the author and the article to be very good.
What on Earth8o
People commenting on her way of writing?
Honestly , the point of this was to learn about the facts and whoever it was, you are correct , it is an opinion and if you did not enjoy it, go read somewhere else.
I enjoyed this article (:
The woman clearly LOVED children:O
And the man clearly LOVED providing them:P
Russians lived in hovels, hurr durr
There’s only one nationality the author could be, and it’s not one apparently given to things like actual education about… stuff…
I’m Matt Damon
@Al: Poor peasant people in the 18th century tended to live in structures that by modern standards we would call hovels. I’m not sure why you’re taking offense to this.
i cant beliv how meny , thay each probobly have never goten the love and nerchering that children need 🙁 i feel bad
*I
*can’t
*believe
*many
*they
*probably
*gotten
*nurturing
i bet thay must have had ALOT of help :l
*they
and also not have much monny 😮
*money
It is sad that i know that picture is the duggars from 17, 18, and 19 kids and counting.
Also her name was Valentina Vassilyev
alex – um i think most people living the modern world with a TV knows that family in the pic is the duggars….
So the husband lived to be 75. And had 69 children and time to marry again? These numbers do not make sense. Lets assume he had the occasional twin or triplet, that would make maybe 50-59 years of baby making. Where is the time to remarry? Maybe he remarried and died within the same year?interesting story, but very unbelievable
@Mandy: Did you even read the article?
This is a very interesting story and from what I read it is well written and infomative. Thanks for this article and hope to see more in the future.
Mandy, seriously, you must be a blonde. Numbers and words confuse you, huh? I mean it says in the story that there were 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets. Just in case this is to much for you to comprehend, twins means having 2 babies in one birth, triplets means having 3 babies in one birth, and the biggest word, quadruplets, means having 4 babies in one birth. As for the story it may sound unbelievable, but it is documented in the book of world records, so do some research, (if you can without forgetting what you’re trying to find out), before you comment and make yourself look like an uneducated person typing because she can(barely).
i second your responce
I third your response. Poor Mandy!!!!
Interesting article and sorry to be that guy again, but there are quite a few linguistic boo-boo’s in there that I’d like to correct.
1. “Yes, you read that correctly 69!” should have a “:” after “correctly”;
2. All the (….) thoughts should be put before the period of the regular sentence and should not have a period themselves
3. “her husband just couldn’t say no too?”, change “too” to “to”
4. “peasant sized hovel” = “peasant-size hovel”
5. “She was the “first wife” of Feodor Vassilyev, seeming to imply he married again.”
6. “So this guy goes out”, everything after that should be separated by comma’s, not semi-colons.
7. “Especially considering that this woman”
8. “and we assume about 25-ish years between generations, then this couple currently has around 70,000 descendants!”
Wow… People trying to teach when they clearly didn’t pay much attention in English class…. Callipygian, if you would have lifted your head to listen to your teacher at least once other than thinking you’re much smarter than everyone else in the class, you would know that substituting a semicolon for a comma is acceptable so there aren’t a bunch of commas in a passage, but you know that don’t you? Wait… no you don’t. Also, this is just an online article, you don’t need to swoop in thinking you can sit and pointlessly correct the author just so you have something to do. If you seriously think trolling the internet for mistakes is fun, then you have some serious problems.
Touch! AND, well said!
*Touche, darn autocorrect!
Why are people correcting his grammar? That is rude and immature. Just read it for the interest in it! If you wish to correct grammar, then become a Lanuage Arts teacher! People make typos, etc! I found the article funny and interesting! Great job Mr. Daven Hiskey! This new “Grammar Nazi” fad is getting very old, quickly! People seem to think it cool to grade articles, thinking that makes them smarts, when in all actuality just reading and comprehending what the article is about, is what makes you smart! Really people, high school standardized test are mostly reading an article and answering comprehensive questions on it! This guy is doing better than half of you are, writing this article, when you “Grammer Nazis” are probably sitting in your bed on your laptop at your mother’s house still! Again, good job Mr. Daven! And if I made any typos, or mistakes in this, quite frankly, I don’t care!
wooaahhhh!!!!! that seems impossible
just 2 words to explain this WOW OMG
Russians in the 1700’s! The great exagerrators!
“The really amazing thing of it is that with the 67 surviving kids, if each of them had 2 kids (a low number for back then, but we’ll be conservative here)”
How do you know for sure? How do you know the decenents wouldn’t be liberal too? Don’t get me wrong I would like to have kids too but not 69.
Oh, I sincerely hope this comment was a joke. Haha!
DEAR DAVEN. I HOPE/ REQUEST U TO HAVE/ MAKE A SYSTEM FOR FILTERING OR BANNING IDIOTS LIKE “EMJO”, “Penetrator”, “AL”, “MANDY”…. AND ALL THE RECURRING LANGUAGE & GRAMMER EXPERTS FROM THIS BOARD. APART FROM THE GOOD ARTICLES U PROVIDE, U MUST ALSO MAINTAIN A BASIC MINIMUM STANDARD OF THE PARTICIPANTS IN THIS BOARD/ FORUM. MEBBE….YOUR INHERENT DECENCY IS A LIABILITY SOMETIMES/ SOMEPLACES. OR SEEMS LIKE U R A FOLLOWER OF MAHATMA GANDHI.
YOU MUST BE VERY PASSIONATE ABOUT THIS
I highly doubt the multiples were identical. Fraternal multiples are generic while identical multiples os just a random thing that happens. For that random thing to happen so many times to one person, is highly unlikely. Therefore, her multiples were probably, mostly, if not all, fraternal.
I read about this woman and her 69 children. However, the article I read implied that it might not have been true. I am not a writer. With that said, I thought the article lacked substance. I think I would probably tell my husband to get fixed after the first set of twins.
this is a interesting record but the first sentence was not needed
Why?
No matter what , the subject matter here is nuts. Just saying , that man must of have a overly working pituitary gland that never shut down. Oh that is horrible, like a dog humping 24-7 . Surprised his weiner isn’t broke or worn down to a numb from so much friction. Not counting the other indulging acts he probably put the woman through.
I overlooked the “poorly written” and concentrated on the info and the humor. I enjoyed laughing while reading out loud to my husband the info he requested.
69 kids
…
…
….
Nice.