By Odunewu Segun
A Ugandan woman has set a world record having given birth to 38 children, comprising six sets of twins, four sets of triplets, three sets of quadruplets and single births in her 25 years of marriage.
Daily Family gathered that the woman simply identified as Mariam Nabanzi Babirye, 37, a native of kabimbiri village, Mukono District, outside Kampala, was married at the age of 12 in 1993 to a man who was 40 years old.
It was also gathered that the woman identified as Mariam Nabatanzi Babirye had her last baby via Caesarian section in December 2016, after which doctors cut her uterus from inside.
In 1994, when she was 13, Nabatanzi 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. This, she says was nothing strange to her because she had seen it before in her lineage.
“My father gave birth to 45 children with different women and these all came in quintuplets, quadruples, twins and triplets,” said the woman, who is called by fellow villagers as Nalongo Muzaala Bana, “the twin mother that produces quadruplets”
Dr Charles Kiggundu, a gynecologist at Mulago Hospital and President of gynaecologists and obstetricians, said it was very possible for Nabatanzi to have taken after her father.
“Her case is genetic predisposition to hyper-ovulate (releasing multiple eggs in one cycle), which significantly increases the chance of having multiples; it is always genetic,” he explained.
“I was advised to keep producing since putting this on hold would mean death. I tried using the Inter Uterine Device (IUD) but I got sick and vomited a lot, to the point of near death. I went into a coma for a month,” she said.
At the age of 23 with 25 children, she went back to hospital to try to stop producing more babies. “I was checked in at Mulago Hospital and advised to continue producing since the ovary count was still high.”
The oldest of her children is 23 years old while the youngest is four months.
