A rare and joyous occurrence took place recently in Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem. A woman gave birth to her 20th child. Remarkably, the resident of the Charedi neighborhood of Meah Shearim, is only 42 years old!

Her 20th child came after her 19th pregnancy, as her previous one were twins. The mother has spent more than 14 years of her life pregnant, or more than one third of her life. She is also already a grandmother.

Israeli Media is reporting that this is probably an Israeli record for the most amount of children in the country, for sure in recent years. It is also a rare occurrence even among the rest of the world. The previous Israeli record holder had her 19th child in 2011. The hospital said that the child was born via a regular birth and that there were no complications during the delivery.

Aliza Altmark, the birthing nurse who helped the woman with this delivery said: “During her labor, we spoke a bit and she said she was very emotional over every birth, of every child. She drew much happiness and joy, even from numbers 19 and 20. This gave me a great feeling as well. She has a lot of help at home as she already has sons-in-law and daughters-in-law.

The Guinness World Record for children is held by an 18th-century Russian peasant woman who had 69 children. She gave birth 27 times, which included 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)