A woman from Uganda has given birth to a jaw-dropping 38 children, and surprisingly she is only 37 years old.
Mariam Nabatanzi gave birth to twins a year after she was married off at the age of 12. Mariam has three sets of quadruplets, four sets of triplets and six sets of twins and incredibly manages to care for and feed them all on her own.
Ten of the children are girls and the remaining 28 are boys. Five years ago, however, the 39-year-old Ugandan was abandoned by her husband, leaving her to support their surviving 38 children alone.
“I did not know I was being married off,” she told the publication.
“People came home and brought things for my father. When time came for them to leave, I thought I was escorting my aunt but when I got there, she gave me away to the man.”
Being a child herself she told how she found married life at such a young age difficult.
“My husband was polygamous with many children from his past relationships who I had to take care of because their mothers were scattered all over. He was also violent and would beat me at any opportunity he got even when I suggested an idea that he didn’t like,” she recalled to the publication.
In 1994, only a year into her marriage and aged 13 she gave birth to twins. Two years later, she gave birth to triplets and a year and seven months after that added a set of quadruplets. By her sixth delivery the mother had 18 children and wanted to stop.
After her first sets of twins were born, Nabatanzi went to a doctor who told her she had unusually large ovaries. He advised her that birth control like pills might cause health problems. So the children kept coming.
Six years ago, Mariam’s final pregnancy—which resulted in the birth of her sixth set of twins—ended tragically. While she was giving birth, one of the infants passed away, and her husband—who would frequently disappear for weeks at a time—finally broke up with her. In her family, his name is now a curse.
Mariam said: “I have grown up in tears, my man has passed me through a lot of suffering.
“All my time has been spent looking after my children and working to earn some money.”
But it was also after this birth that the mum finally got the medical help she needed to stop her having more babies.
Following the most recent birth she says; “I asked the doctor to stop me from more births and he said he had ‘cut my uterus from inside’. My illness from trying to use an IUD left me frail, so this was the only cesarean delivery I had.”
Despite all the challenges she has suffered in her short life the mother of 38 is optimistic about seeing her children through school and making sure they are all educated properly.
“I am hopeful that my children will go to school because they all have big ambitions of being doctors, teachers and lawyers; I want them to realise these dreams, something I was not able to do.”
