Guinness world record most prolific father
Iowa boy born at 21 weeks is now the world's most premature baby
It’s an expectant parent’s worst nightmare: Waiting in a hospital room for days surrounded by doctors and nurses, hoping their baby won’t be born too early.
For Randall and Mollie Keen, they needed their baby to be born after midnight on July 5, 2024. If the baby could hold off until then, the expert neonatal team at University of Iowa Health Care Stead Family Children’s Hospital would do everything they could to save their son, Nash.
“I never lost hope for Nash,” Mollie Keen says months later, holding a baby who is all giggles.
The Keen family celebrated Nash’s first birthday on July 5, something that seemed nearly impossible a year ago. But for the Ankeny boy—now the Guinness World Records titleholder for most premature baby—beating “impossible” odds is what he’s good at.
Remembering McKinley Keen
While Nash’s story is one of triumph, resilience, and a lot of luck, it started with a loss. Less than a year before he was born, his parents, Mollie and Randall, lost a baby girl named McKinley.
“We lost her at just 18 weeks' gestation,” Mollie K
Who's the daddy? The most prolific fathers from history
Today, a dad with a dozen children would possibly make the news, but to the famous historical fathers featured on this list, that number is child’s play.
From Ancient Egypt to 19th-century America, these men have made it into the history books not just by their deeds but by the spreading of their seeds. These prominent papas were kings, warlords, and religious leaders. They produced progeny – legitimate and illegitimate - for politics, power, and pride.
Here is a selection of nine of the most fertile fathers from former times, from the smallest tally of tots to the largest litters (not including famous sperm donors).
1. Henry I – 27 children
Henry I, King of England from 1100 until his death in 1135, is believed to have fathered more children than any other monarch in British history.
Henry had two, possibly three, legitimate young’uns with his wife, Matilda of Scotland, but he also had a large troop of illegitimate children. The exact number is unknown, but 24 have been established.
Henry, the son of William the Conqueror, found useful political ends for his royal romping and such extramarital beha
The Garden of Forking Paths
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The news is bleak, so let’s Zoom out, and look elsewhere to find something a bit uplifting and unusual in an unexpected place.
When we speak about individuals who changed history, we tend to think of leaders, innovators, and those who swayed the trajectory of human events. But those consequential figures only changed what people did.
What about the individuals who most changed who we are?
Every human trait has an absolute maximum. There’s the tallest person who ever lived, the strongest, and so on. Someone, known or unknown, had the most back hair or the smallest nostrils or the heaviest spleen, of any human, ever.
But that also means that there is precisely one person, throughout the long stretch of human history, who has most affected the future genetic path of our species.
Who was it? And why does it matter? The answers, which may lie in a striking new revelation about the near-extinction of our ancestors, raises jarring questions about our collective existe
Father of 89 Children, World’s Most Prolific Dad, Has Died
There are many qualities to which one might aspire as a father: dedication, presence, patience, coolness, not going bald, etc. Being a prolific dad, however, is not a goal with which most men I know of care for to approach fatherhood — unlike Ziona Chana, a man who sired at least 89 children before his death at age 76 last weekend.
I can’t say whether having as many children as possible was Chana’s primary goal as a father, but it’s hard to conceive anyone ending up with nearly a hundred children simply because they just love being a dad. The leader of a Christian sect in the Indian state of Mizoram that allows polygamy for men, Chana is believed to have been the head of the largest family in the world, with 38 wives, 89 children and 36 grandchildren, per a tweet from Mizoram’s chief minister, Zoramthanga, in recognition of Chana’s passing on Sunday of hypertension and diabetes. However, as the New York Post notes, Chana’s actual number of children is disputed, as are claims that he had the largest family in the world. Regardless, the point is this guy had a massive family and fathered m
The Woman who Holds the Unbelievable Record for Having the Most Children
The theoretical limit of how many babies a male human could father seems to be limitless. Genghis Khan is a popular historical example.
He had so many children that modern research tells us his ancestors today number roughly 16 million; that’s close to the current population of the Netherlands in Europe or Senegal in Africa.
But what are the limits for women? How many children can a woman possibly bear within her lifetime? Bringing even one child into this world is, incomparably, a physically exhausting process.
Guinness World Records tells us the crown for giving birth to the most children goes to an 18th century Russian woman. Her name is uncertain, but she was the wife of a peasant farmer called Feodor Vassilyev. Some sources mention her name could have been Valentina.
So, Mrs. Valentina Vassilyev went into labor 27 separate times, if the seemingly improbable records of the time are accurate.
She delivered 16 sets of twins, seven triplets and four squads of quadruplets. That totals to 69 bouncing babies, of whom 67 survived early infancy, which in itself sounds suspicious since child mortality ra