The man who is thought to have fathered the most children of all time is Moroccan Sultan Ismail Ibn Sharif (1645 to 1727) with a total of more than 1,000, according to Guinness World Records.
Valentina Vassilyev and her husband Feodor Vassilyev are alleged to hold the record for the most children a couple has produced. She gave birth to a total of 69 children – sixteen pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets – between 1725 and 1765, a total of 27 births.
New Delhi: Kyle Gordy, 30, from California, US, is a sperm donor and the biological father to more than 50 children across the world, but he is now facing a problem in having a regular relationship as women approach him for having a baby and not for settling down with him, according to various media reports.
The most fertile woman in history is alleged to be an 18th-century Russian peasant called Valentina Vassilyev. Between 1725 and 1765, she is recorded as giving birth to a total of 69 children – 67 of whom survived infancy. This included 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets.
Among mothers near the end of their childbearing years, Hispanics and blacks have the largest families. On average, a Hispanic mother ages 40 to 44 has had about 2.6 children. By comparison, black mothers have had about 2.5. White and Asian mothers have families that are a bit smaller, on average.
This produced the largest dataset available on the sex ratio throughout the stages of pregnancy. A key result from this study was that the sex ratio at conception is equal: there is no difference in the number of males and females conceived.
One study estimated a woman can have around 15-30 children in a lifetime, taking pregnancy and recovery time into account. Since men require less time and fewer resources to have kids, the most "prolific" fathers today can have up to about 200 children.
Gosiame Thamara Sithole's husband says they were astonished by decuplets after scans only showed eight in the womb. "It's seven boys and three girls. I am happy.
Most pregnancies last 37 to 42 weeks, but some take longer. If your pregnancy lasts more than 42 weeks, it is called post-term (past due). This happens in a small number of pregnancies. While there are some risks in a post-term pregnancy, most post-term babies are born healthy.
9 years old
This father and mother are the youngest biological parents in terms of combined age on record. They were farmers, with the surname Hsi, from Amoy, Fukien, and went on to marry and have four children.
These days, more same-sex male couples are creating their own families through surrogacy. There are two types. Full or gestational surrogacy is when a fertilised donor egg is implanted into a surrogate through in vitro fertilisation (IVF). The surrogate has no genetic connection to the baby.
Beatie had gender reassignment surgery in March 2002 and became known as "the pregnant man" after he became pregnant through artificial insemination in 2007. Beatie chose to be pregnant because his wife Nancy was infertile, doing so with donated sperm.
In a remote village in the northeast of India, on top of a hill, a man lives in a house with members of his family: 39 wives, 94 children and 33 grandchildren. The man, Ziona Chana, is the head of a local Christian sect that allows polygamy.
Genghis Khan is known as one of the greatest warriors in the history of the world, but that is not the only thing he is known for. He is also known for being the man who had the most kids in the world.
After a few naive 'fumbles' with her boyfriend, Alda Johanna Hafnadottir found herself making history by getting pregnant at just 12 years old. She shares her story in her own words.
If the 12 – called duodecaplets – are all born alive they would represent a medical miracle and break the record of American mother Nadya Suleman, who recently gave birth to the world's longest-surviving octuplets.
Ten babies in a multiple birth are called decuplets. Terms used for the number of offspring in a multiple birth: two offspring – twins. three offspring – triplets.
Sure. But maybe not that far in the future. Recently, researchers with the Institute of Life in Athens, Greece, announced that a healthy baby boy was born who basically had the DNA from three people. The child was born to a 32-year-old woman who had failed in four cycles of in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Three-child policy (Chinese: 三孩政策; pinyin: Sānhái Zhèngcè), whereby a couple can have three children, was a family planning policy in the People's Republic of China.
A two child policy has previously been used in several countries including Iran, Singapore, and Vietnam. In British Hong Kong in the 1970s, citizens were also highly encouraged to have two children as a limit (although it was not mandated by law), and it was used as part of the region's family planning strategies.
Yet women continue to live longer than men, suggesting the biological differences also have a role. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the average American man will live to age 76, while the average woman in America will live to age 81.
Women around the world report higher levels of life satisfaction than men, but at the same time report more daily stress. And while this finding holds across countries on average, it does not hold in countries where gender rights are compromised, as in much of the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.
Male births were much more likely to require the use of oxytocin, a hormone which stimulates contractions. "Of the women carrying male infants, 70 per cent of them had completely normal deliveries, compared to 76 per cent of females."