Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: paul.fr on 29/04/2008 16:29:30

Title: How many times can a woman give birth?
Post by: paul.fr on 29/04/2008 16:29:30

Is there an upper limit? Why, why not?

Title: How many times can a woman give birth?
Post by: another_someone on 29/04/2008 17:30:18

The number of years between menarche and menopause, and the need for 9 months of gestation, will present a rather elastic limit.

In reality, I would think that a woman who has a child every 9 months will, after a few years, have put her reproductive system through quite a trauma.

In past times, 13 children were not uncommon, and 20 no impossible.  Assuming 1 child a year, and starting at age 16 (although, as we have discussed elsewhere, some girls have menarche as early as 8 to 12 years of age), then 20 children will take the woman to an age of 36, but a reproductive system that I can well imagine to have been pretty exhausted.

Title: How many times can a woman give birth?
Post by: Karen W. on 29/04/2008 17:40:58

I have a set of my Great great great Grandparents way back with 22 children all hers. As I understand there was two sets of twins in that single family unit. They were all parented by the same two parents. all naturally delivered and as I understood it she lived until she was a tad older then 100.. before passing.  I never knew her...my grandma told us about her many years ago.. She called her Grandma Sarah... whom I named my Daughter after.. From all I was told was a wonderful parent and an amazing women to have known!

Title: How many times can a woman give birth?
Post by: Madidus_Scientia on 30/04/2008 00:39:23

hard to believe, but this is from the internets:

Quote

The highest officially recorded number of children born to one mother is 69, to the first wife of Feodor Vassilyev (1707-1782) of Shuya, Russia. Between 1725 and 1765, in a total of 27 confinements, she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets. 67 of them survived infancy.

Title: How many times can a woman give birth?
Post by: turnipsock on 30/04/2008 01:10:23

First Wife!?

Title: How many times can a woman give birth?
Post by: another_someone on 30/04/2008 01:44:46

I have searched references for Feodor Vassilyev.

The same story is repeated numerous times, but the thing that makes me particularly sceptical (aside from the likelihood that a Russian peasant in the 18th century surviving so many multiple births, particularly quadruplets) is the similarity of all of the stories, indicating they have been copied from each other rather than going back to solid independent sources.