how many offspring can a human female have in a lifetime?

Question

if she has regular intercourse and does not use birth control

Answer 1

MOST CHILDREN (by one women) per Guiness book of world records
The greatest officially recorded number of children produced by a mother is 69 by the first of the 2 wives of Feodor Vassilyev (b 1707-fl. 1782), a peasant from Shuya, 150 miles east of Moscow. In 27 confinements she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets and 4 sets of quadruplets. The children, were born in the period c. 1725-1765.

Found in text at link below.

Theoretically...I don't know

Answer 2

Human females become fertile at 13, on average. They can continue until they are 50 plus.
So that gives them 36 plus fertile years.
If she breast feeds, she will have a natural period of infertility between them. So assuming only one birth at a time, she could have about 12-18 children.
There are social restraints on when a woman should start to produce young. In most countries it is 16-20. On the other hand, many women do not breast feed for long. This means that they could have a child each year. So they could have more children, but I don't think most could healthily produce much more than twenty children, unless they had twins.
The main problem would be rearing so many children. Where women have large numbers of pregnancies, there is often a high mortality rate.

Answer 3

Because nothing in biology has a purpose... it has a function with relation to other parts. Things don't evolve in a certain way to be logical, they just respond to selective pressures and the randomness of mutation. Women living past their reproductive age does not have much of a detrimental effect on the success of the human race, and even if it did, people have only been living past their prime for a few hundred years. This is not enough time to evolve a shorter natural lifespan. The eighty or so years that we live is really just coincidental. Also, you may be looking at this the wrong way. Instead of thinking about why women die a long time after they stop being able to reproduce, think about why they stop being able to reproduce before they naturally die. We have a very long parental care stage, at least 16 years. What if a woman had a child shortly before she stopped being able to reproduce. If she lives for 20 or so years more, she can properly raise the child. If not, the child will become an orphan, and probably not survive (in the wild at least).

Answer 4

There are too many variables to give a simple answer to this. You would have to take into account the number of offspring at each birth (twins triplets etc).

Then there is the fertility, women are much more fertile in their twenties but at age 40 44% get pregnant in a year and 64% in 4 years. And also at age 40, only 35% are 'healthy' births.

Answer 5

The maximum number of offspring credited to a human female is 69, to a 18th century Russian woman that repeatedly produced twins. The Guinness Book of World Records cites a living Argentine woman who has given birth to 38 children.
The maximum number of offspring credited to a human male is 888. This record is held by Ismael the bloodthirsty, the emperor of Morocco from 1672-1727. On biological grounds, this record seems somewhat inflated, perhaps only half these children were actually sired by him.

Answer 6

Well say she started having kids at 16 and stopped at 45, obviously 9 months pregnancy, give 3 months rest... that is 29 years... now some of those could be multiple pregnancies so add a few more in, lets say that a woman could hypothetically have about 40 children, but I would say that biologically I dont think that a body would put up with it...

I have seen an article where a woman had 17 children....

One is enough for me!

Answer 7

25

Answer 8

Assumptions:

Women can bear children between the ages of 15 and 44
A woman can be pregnant every 9 months
Each pregnancy births one child

# of years = 29
# of months = 29*12 = 348
# of months / 9 months = rounded down to 38 kids

Answer 9

In theory she could have one every year. So say she started her period at 12 and went through menopause at age 50. So she could in theory with this window have 38 children. This is only in theory. There other outside factors that can come in to play, lack of wanting sex, being able to conceive very soon after giving birth, etc. I think probably the most I have ever heard was 17. There was a lady that use to live down the street from me that had 17

Answer 10

as long as she has viable eggs, she could have a baby every year from the time she starts her cycle until menopause which can be 35-45 years. Now, after 35, the eggs should be less viable but I suppose if she wanted, probably around 25-30 kids. My grandmother had 11 and an Aunt had 13. Devout Catholics.