44 children at 36. The living woman who has given birth to the most children in the world

This story’s hero is a simple African woman. She was married off at the age of 12. A year later – the first birth. And in just 20 years, she became the mother of 44 children. At the same time, the family lived in total poverty, and only when it became known to the whole world about her record, food, clothes appeared in the house, and the children were able to get an education.

They live in Uganda. It is a country in East Africa with 35 million population. It has consistently ranked among the world’s poorest countries for decades. According to the UN, almost 40% of the population of Uganda lives on less than 1.25 US dollars per day.

Ugandan pictures. Photos from pixabay.com

Our heroine’s name is Mariam Nabatanzi Babiri. She was born in 1981 in a huge but extremely poor family.
In 1993 Mariam was married off for a resident of a neighboring village, a widower who turned 40 years old. It is a very sad fact that children like her had to go through all of that just because of the financial situation of their families.

A year after marriage, the 13-year-old girl already gave birth to twins. The second births were also multiple. In total, Mariam gave birth 15 times and gave birth to 6 pairs of twins, 4 triplets, 5 groups of quadruplets. In total 44 children. Of these, 20 boys and 18 girls survived infancy, and judging by the latest journalistic reports, they are all alive and well.

Mariam today. Photo from open sources

Doctors diagnosed the woman with a rare genetic disorder, most likely hereditary. Any pregnancy turned into a multiple pregnancy. She was banned from taking birth control pills. I just had to give birth.

At the same time, the family lived in extremely cramped circumstances. Once quite a wealthy husband, he could no longer feed such a number of descendants. Mariam asked the doctors to perform a sterilization operation, but the local doctors refused to take it. The woman was lucky that her case was described in one scientific journal. Doctors around the world became interested in a unique mother.

Photo from public sources

Finally, at the age of 36, immediately after another birth, a group of British doctors performed an operation on Mariam. She didn’t get pregnant again. Now she is 41 years old and she is a single mother. The overgrown husband ran away in 2016, leaving a dilapidated house and a crumbling household to his wife and children. He does not communicate with any of his children.

The attention of Western doctors, and then journalists, had positive consequences for Mariam. The government began to provide financial assistance, allocated land for the construction of a new house. The children were given the opportunity to learn, including getting a professional education.

Photo from public sources

According to reports in 2019, “Mama Uganda”, as Mariam is now called, and most of her children still live in their village. They live in better conditions. Today there is enough space in the beds for everyone, and before the whole crowd slept on a dirty clay floor.

Photo from public sources

The government provides a unique family with 25 kg of cornmeal per day, beans and sugar. Not a single woman in the modern world even comes close to compare with Mariam. In second place in the list of “record holders” are four mothers from Italy, the USA, Argentina and Brazil, who gave birth to 32 children each.