This archive report was first published on 17 October 2019.
'World's Most Fertile Woman' Stops Having Children After 44 Births ¶
On October 17, 2019, doctors took action to stop Mariam Nabatanzi, a 40-year-old Ugandan woman, from having any more children after she gave birth to 44 children by the age of 36.
Mariam suffers from a rare genetic condition that causes her to have unusually large ovaries, which significantly increases the chance of having multiples. Her case is a genetic predisposition to hyper-ovulate, releasing multiple eggs in one cycle.
Her father had 45 children with several different women, and Mariam's husband, who was 28 years her senior, left her almost four years ago after one of her twins died during labor.
Mariam has three sets of quadruplets, four sets of triplets, and six sets of twins. She manages to care for and feed them all on her own, despite living in appallingly cramped conditions in four tiny homes made from cement bricks and a corrugated iron roof.
She works as a hairdresser, an event decorator, collects and sells scrap metal, brews her own local gin to sell, and makes herbal medicine to provide for her children.
Despite her best efforts, one of her children, Ivan Kibuka, had to quit school to help raise the family. Mariam's early years were filled with heartbreak, including her mother abandoning her at just a few days old and her step-mother poisoning her older siblings.
Today, Mariam's youngsters have to make the best of what she manages to provide as a single parent, with metal bunk beds and thin mattresses where 12 of her brood sleep in one small room.
