Mariem Nabatanzi had given birth to 44 children at by the age of 40.
REUTERS

EEW Magazine Online // Anthony Blair // People

A Ugandan mother is making global headlines for holding the world record for the most children and being warned by doctors that she could suffer severe health problems if she stopped giving birth.

Mariem Nabatanzi, who had given birth to 44 kids by the age of 40 and attributes her abundant fertility to “God’s grace” was told that no existing family planning methods would be effective for her.

The medical anomaly has birthed four sets of twins, five sets of triplets, and five sets of quadruplets. When God said, “Be fruitful and multiply” in Genesis 1:28, it looks like she was at the center of the plan.

Only once did she give birth to a single child.

Six of her children died, and her husband abandoned her and ran off with all the family’s money, leaving Mariem with 38 children – 20 boys and 18 girls – to raise single-handedly.

Mariem Nabatanzi has been diagnosed with hyperovulation.
REUTERS

Mariem was married off when she was only 12 years old after her parents sold her and soon after she fell pregnant, giving birth to her first child at the age of just 13.

Fertility rates are far higher in Uganda, where the average is 5.6 children per woman, according to the World Bank. That’s more than double the world average of 2.4 children.

But Mariem – dubbed ‘Mama Uganda’ in her home country – soon realized that she was unlike other women.

When she kept having twins, triplets, and quadruplets, she went to a health clinic.

Doctors told her that she had abnormally large ovaries which led to a condition called hyperovulation.

She was told that birth control wouldn’t work and would likely cause severe health problems.

Mariem Nabatanzi’s husband left her and took all the family’s money to care for her dozens of children herself.
REUTERS

Treatments do exist for hyperovulation, but they are hard to come by in rural Uganda.

As Dr. Charles Kiggundu, a gynecologist at Mulago Hospital in Uganda’s capital Kampala told The Daily Monitor, the most likely cause of Mariem’s extreme fertility was hereditary.

“Her case is a genetic predisposition to hyper-ovulate – releasing multiple eggs in one cycle – which significantly increases the chances of having multiple births,” he said.

Today at 43, she says she was told to stop having children three years ago following her last birth.

She said the doctor told her he had “cut my uterus from inside”.

All of Mariem Nabatanzi’s children are from the same father.
Picture Alliance via Getty

Speaking through a translator to filmmaker Joe Hattab, Mariem said: “It was God’s grace to want to give me many children.”

However, her story is tinged with sadness.

She said she was forced into marriage at age 12 against her will after her parents sold her for the dowry.

Mariem added that doctors told her she was too fertile and that she needed to keep giving birth in order to reduce fertility levels in her ovaries.

She was told that that giving birth was the only way to “ease” her body.

According to Mayo Clinic, a US private health company with offices around the world: “Severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome is uncommon, but can be life-threatening.”

Other complications can include fluid buildup in the abdomen or chest, blood clots, kidney failure, twisting of the ovary, or breathing problems.

All her children are from her often-absent husband who finally left her in 2016, the same year that she gave birth to her youngest child.

Speaking through a translator, one of her sons told Joe Hattab that his mother is his “hero.”

Today, Mariem and her brood live in four cramped houses made of cement blocks with corrugated iron roofs in a village surrounded by coffee fields 31 miles north of Kampala.

She told Joe Hattab that a “kind woman” had donated some bunk beds for her children after her husband left her, but it can still get cramped with 12 in one room sleeping two to a mattress.

Mariem has done everything to provide for her children, turning her hand to hairdressing, scrap metal collecting, brewing homemade gin, and selling herbal medicine. All the money she makes is immediately swallowed up by food, clothing, medical care, and school fees.

But on a grimy wall in her home in pride of place are hanging portraits of some of her children graduating from school.

This story originally appeared on The Sun and parts have been reproduced here with permission.