According to research, a woman can have somewhere around 15 to 30 babies in her lifetime.
The mother's body after childbirth
Girls generally start menstruating at the age of 13 and this continues till she becomes 51, which gives her 38 possible years of reproductive action. However, counting that every delivery requires 9 months, a limit of about 40 pregnancies actually seems probable.
Guinness World Records shares video of Malian woman who gave birth to nine babies at once. Watch.
There's no scientific limit, but the largest reported number of fetuses in one womb was 15. In 1971, Dr. Gennaro Montanino of Rome claimed to have removed 15 fetuses from the womb of a 35-year-old woman.
Multiple birth babies have about twice the risk of congenital (present at birth) abnormalities including neural tube defects (such as spina bifida), gastrointestinal, and heart abnormalities.
“Once you get past two to three children, the risks increase for complications,” she added. In 2014, a study by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center found women who have four or more children double their risk of heart disease.
Multiple births of as many as eight babies have been born alive, the first surviving set on record goes to the Suleman octuplets, born in 2009 in Bellflower, California.
Women can reproduce for about half of their lifetime and can only give birth about once every year or so. So it makes sense that women can only have a fraction as many children as men. One study estimated a woman can have around 15 pregnancies in a lifetime.
Mary Jonas (1814–1899) gave birth to 33 children, including 15 sets of boy–girl twins. All were christened, but few reached adulthood. Ten children were still alive when their father John died in 1892.
While a 92-year-old woman delivering a 60-year-old baby may sound like a bizarre plot twist from the movie “Benjamin Button,” it's true. Huang Yijun, 92, of southern China, recently delivered a child which she'd been carrying for well over half a century. The baby wasn't alive, however.
The oldest recorded mother to date to conceive was 73 years, while the youngest mother was 5 years old. According to statistics from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, in the UK more than 20 babies are born to women over age 50 per year through in-vitro fertilization with the use of donor oocytes (eggs).
Grow your family to at least four children! According to a study out of Australia's Edith Cowan University, parents with the most life satisfaction (which means those who are the happiest) are those that have four or more children.
“So, every patient is different and every case is unique. However, from the current medical evidence, most medical authorities do state that if multiple C-sections are planned, the expert recommendation is to adhere to the maximum number of three.”
Xinju Tian, who was 67 years old when she gave birth in 2023, set a new record for the oldest woman to give birth naturally. In late October 2019, it was reported that 67-year-old Xinju Tian had given birth to a healthy baby girl, making international headlines.
Mia Farrow is mom to 14 children. She has four biological kids—twins Matthew and Sascha and son Fletcher with ex-husband André Previn, plus Ronan with ex Woody Allen—as well as those she has adopted: Lark, Summer and Soon-Yi Previn, along with Moses, Dylan, Tam, Thaddeus, Quincy, Frankie-Minh, and Isaiah Farrow.
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.
A near-universal one-child limit was imposed in 1980 and written into the country's constitution in 1982. Numerous exceptions were established over time, and by 1984, only about 35.4% of the population was subject to the original restriction of the policy.
Superfetation is a phenomenon that occurs when a pregnant woman releases an egg, usually a few weeks into her pregnancy, and it's fertilized and implants in the uterus. The result is two separate pregnancies happening at the same time.
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.
Nonuplets (9)
A set of nonuplets was born on 13 June 1971, in Sydney, Australia to Geraldine Brodrick and her husband Leonard. They were five boys and four girls; two of the boys were stillborn and the last of the surviving babies, a boy named Richard, died six days after the birth.
A gap of 3 years or more greatly reduces the chances of sibling rivalry. By this time the older child is secure in him or herself and quite independent. In addition, the mother's body is fully recovered from the challenges of pregnancy and birth of the first child.
Male fertility generally starts to reduce around age 40 to 45 years when sperm quality decreases. Increasing male age reduces the overall chances of pregnancy and increases time to pregnancy (the number of menstrual cycles it takes to become pregnant) and the risk of miscarriage and fetal death.
There's no maximum age that stops a man from being able to have a baby. You can become a father long into your older years, but there are risks.