This woman gives the word “fertility” a new meaning.

The Guinness World Record for most children born to a single other actually goes to Valentina Vassilev, the wife of Feodor Vassillyev, a peasant farmer from Russia in her lifetime, he gave birth to a total of 69 children. Valentina lived to be 76 years old and between 1725 and 1765, she gave birth to 69 kids (16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets and 4 sets of quadruplets).

67 of these children survived infancy, but a set of twins lost their lives.

According to history, Feodor was a farmer in Shuya, Russia in the 1700s. However, his wife was the real star, she is seen as the most prolific mother, even after giving birth to 69 children.

The Math Behind 69 Babies to 1 Mother
4 x 4 = 16
7 x 3 = 21
16 x 2 = 32
———-
27 births, 69 children

The first account of Feodor’s children appeared in an issue of the Gentleman’s Magazine that was published in 1783, and it states that the information “although astonishing, may be depended upon, as it came from an English merchant in St Petersburg to his family members in England, who added that the Empress was to have an audience with the peasant”.

The same numbers were seen in Ivan Nikitich Bolton’s commentary on the history of Russia in 1788 as well as in Saint Petersburg Panorama, a book by Alexander Pavlovich Bashutskiy.

A few published sources doubted the veracity of these claims. A 1933 article by Julia Bell in Biometrika, a book of B.F.F. Hermann Statistische Schilderung von Rußland provided these claims, but “with a warning”.

Bell also notes that The Lancet reported the case in an article about twins. The article by The Lancet claims that in an effort to verify these claims, the French Academy of Sciences contacted “M. Khanikoff of the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg for counsel as to how they could pursue it, but he said that all investigations were superfluous, that members of the family still resided in Moscow, and that they still got favors from the government”

Bell concludes that the case of Valentina must be handled with suspicion. In like manner, Marie Clay in a book in 1998 notes, “Sadly, the evasion of proper investigation seems to have dealt a blow to our chances of ascertaining the truth about this astonishing case”

The Guinness Book of World Records contains data about her children.

A woman getting pregnant 27 times is truly amazing. However, as an equally interesting titbit, her husband Feodor ended up having even more kids.

Feodor fathered 18 more kids with his second wife, who had 6 pairs of twins and 2 sets of triplets. This means that in total, the man had 87 kids!

Sadly though, the Vassilyev family has no photographs. There is one which seems to be traveling with the story, but no reports confirm that it actually belongs to Feodor, Valentina or their family.

Although this historic record of a single mother’s birth should not be taken with much seriousness, it is certainly believable that Mrs. Vassilyev could have had a genetic propensity to over-ovulate, which will significantly increase the chances of her having twins or multiple kids.

It is also possible for a woman to give birth 27 times.