Ten childbirths that shocked the world

Missus.Ru website made the list of most unusual childbirths, which shocked the world in 2010. The list includes a Russian woman, who delivered four children in four minutes, an African woman, who gave birth to children of different colors at once, an Egyptian woman, who gave birth to seven babies, a man from Kuzbass, the father of a large family, who became a grandfather 103 times, and many other interesting cases.

1. In Russia's Kaliningrad enclave, a woman gave birth to four babies - two girls and two boys. It became the first incident in the history of the whole region, and a third incident in the whole country. The woman delivered the quadruplets in four minutes only. Sergei and Julia Grakhovskikh always thought that a family should have two children. When their daughter turned eight, the couple decided to have a second child. As a result, the woman is now a mother of five.

2. Florence, a 35-year-old woman from Africa, gave birth to twins of different colors. Her husband is a white male from Germany. Medics say that there is one chance in a million when children with such distinctive appearance can be born. The woman became the mother for the first time. One child is a dark-skinned and black-haired boy, who was named Leo. His brother has white skin and blue eyes - he was named Ryan.

3. In Alexandria, Egypt, a 27-year-old woman successfully delivered seven children. The babies - four boys and three girls - were born prematurely. The babies were born by Cesarean section. A similar incident took place in Algeria in 2007, although none of the newborns stayed alive.

4. Great Britain was very surprised when 31-year-old Vicky Lamb from Oxfordshire delivered sextuplets in May of 2010. The woman gave birth to four girls and two boys. The newborns range in weight from 1lb 5oz to 1lb 15oz.

5. Aleksei Shapovalov, 73, from the city of Novokuznetsk became a grandfather 103 times. His 103rd granddaughter became the 15th child in the family of the man's sixth son. The record-holding man has 117 descendants: 13 children, 51 granddaughters, 52 grandsons and one great-grandson. Shapovalov says that he has a religious family, that's why they do not use contraceptives. His sons and daughters have 10-15 children each.

6. 22-year-old Chilean Olympic weightlifter Elizabeth Poblete had the surprise of her life, when, during training, she gave birth to a child she did not even know she was pregnant with. The child was three months premature and did not survive.

7. An extremely rare incident took place to a British woman. She gave birth to two sets of twins within just one year. Hazell Bowden discovered she was pregnant with twins again just four months after giving birth to her first set, the Daily Mail reported. The woman is thought to be the only woman in the UK to have given birth to two sets of twins within just one year.

8. Tom Penn, 46, and Alison, 31, from New York became parents to identical triplets. The triplets, carried to 35 weeks and weighing 4 pounds, 12 ounces; 4 pounds; and 4 pounds, 11 ounces at birth, are identical triplets, the first known to be born on Long Island in almost 15 years. The children were named Logan, Eli and Collin. The father calculated that the kids would need 10,000 diapers a year.

9. A 34-year British woman arranged an online broadcast of her labor on Twitter. Hundreds of people were following the woman on Twitter for 13 hours. According to Fi Star-Stone, she decided to tell about the process of childbirth in Twitter, to help women who are preparing to become mothers, to overcome the fears associated with childbirth. "I constantly hear from women that they are afraid of pregnancy, that's decided to tell them that there is nothing terrible," Star-Stone said.

10. In Germany, a 64-year-old woman gave birth to a baby girl and became the nation's oldest mother. The woman previously tried to get pregnant through IVF, but all of her attempts failed.

Alexandra Agapova
Missus