Inspiring Story Of A Biological Mother Of 38 Children

By Liz Wanka

The most fertile woman in the world, 39-year old Mariam Nabatanzi from Uganda, has mothered 44 children as a result of a rare condition called hyperovulation. 38 children are alive today. She is a single mother fending for her 38 children. A victim of peer pressure. In 1993, at the age of 13, her father married her off to a 40-year old man. “I did not know I was being married off. 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” she recalls.

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, quadruplets, twins and triplets,” she says. 

Although she planned to have only six children, by the time she delivered thrice, she had given birth to 18 children and found out it wasn’t even up to her to stop when she wanted to stop. Her husband and the father of her 38 children walked away from his large family. Nabatanzi has given up on the pleasures of life to look after her 38 children’s needs. She fends for them by doing menial jobs, braiding hair, decor for event management and whatever she can lay her hands on. She has some children in Elementary school and others in High school as she desires to secure education for all her children.

Watch her inspiring interview below:

Liz Wanka is a writer of inspiring stories and news.