MEET THE 37-YEAR-OLD UGANDAN WOMAN WHO HAS GIVEN BIRTH TO 38 HEALTHY CHILDREN ... THIS IS THE MEDICAL CONDITION SHE HAS THAT MEANT SHE COULDN'T STOP GIVING BIRTH
.
.....in 1993 and soon after, she was married off to a husband who was polygamous and abusive.
"I did not know I was being married off. People came home and brought things for my father. When time came for them to leave, I thought I was escorting my aunt but when I got there, she gave me away to the man."
When Mariam began to have multiple births, she did not see anything strange in it because her father had 45 children with different women and these kids all came in quintuplets, quadruples, triplets and twins.
By Mariam's sixth preganacy, she already had 18 children and wanted to stop, so, she visited a hospital but the doctors said they could not help her since she had a high ovary count which would eventually kill her if she stopped having kids. She tried again when she had 23 children and she was told the same thing; that she would die if she tries to stop having kids.
"I did not know I was being married off. People came home and brought things for my father. When time came for them to leave, I thought I was escorting my aunt but when I got there, she gave me away to the man."
When Mariam began to have multiple births, she did not see anything strange in it because her father had 45 children with different women and these kids all came in quintuplets, quadruples, triplets and twins.
By Mariam's sixth preganacy, she already had 18 children and wanted to stop, so, she visited a hospital but the doctors said they could not help her since she had a high ovary count which would eventually kill her if she stopped having kids. She tried again when she had 23 children and she was told the same thing; that she would die if she tries to stop having kids.
“Having these unfertilised eggs accumulate poses not only a threat to destroy the reproductive system but can also make the woman lose their lives,” Dr Ahmed Kikomeko from Kawempe General Hospital explains.
"I was advised to keep producing since putting this on hold would mean death. I tried using the Inter Uterine Device (IUD) but I got sick and vomited a lot, to the point of near death. I went into a coma for a month," she explains.
It was only after.....
"I was advised to keep producing since putting this on hold would mean death. I tried using the Inter Uterine Device (IUD) but I got sick and vomited a lot, to the point of near death. I went into a coma for a month," she explains.
It was only after.....
