The Peasant Mother Who Gave Birth to Sixty-Nine Babies

Vassilyev's 69 babies from one wifeSirlute

A woman who gave birth to 69 babies holds the Guinness world record of the most prolific mother. Mrs. Vassilyev from Shuya gave birth to 4 sets of quadruplets, seven sets of triplets, and 16 pairs of twins. Of her 69 children, 67 survived infancy.

The great news of the Vassilyevs’ reached the western world after an English merchant in St Petersburg relayed the information in a letter to the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1783. However, the case was first reported in 1782 to Moscow by the Nikolsk Monastery, which kept a record of the family’s childbirths.

According to the US Department of Agriculture, the projected average expenditure of an American family raising one child is $233,610. The department’s estimates came from decades of collected data as researchers calculated the expenses by the child’s age, household income, and the region of the country in a study that the department has been conducting since 1960. Nevertheless, if the Vassilyev family lived in contemporary America, they would need $15,651,870 to raise their surviving 67 children.

Though Mrs. Vassilyev might have been the most fertile woman some 297 years ago, a Ugandan single mother named Mariam Nabatanzi is today in our time raising her 44 children in rural Uganda. As can be imagined, Mariam’s life hasn’t been easy. By the time she was 23 years old, she had 25 children, and at 36 years old, Mariam was a mother to 42 children.

Mariam Nabatanzi and her children

Mrs. Vassilyev and Mariam Nabatanzi, while belonging to that particular category of women the Guinness world records call “the most prolific mother ever,” means that they are also in the lucky category of surviving maternal death after their frequent pregnancies. In the US, the CDC records that for every 100,000 live births, the maternity mortality rate stands at 23.8 deaths.

Similarly, in 2020 and 2019 alone, the US lost 1,615 women to maternity mortality. The CDC says the risks of maternity mortality are 2.9 times higher for Black women compared to White and Hispanic women. However, a total of 300,000 women die annually from pregnancy-related complications globally.

While Mrs. Vassilyev and Mariam Nabatanzi did not enjoy the maternal healthcare of the first world countries, maternity mortality still remains a danger to all women everywhere. Still, as well as being fortunate, the two women endured untold hardships, which is why I find their stories extraordinary.