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World News Daily Report claims:

An American woman has totally annihilated the former World Record for the most babies in a lone pregnancy by giving birth to seventeen babies over 29 hours last weekend at the Indianapolis Memorial Hospital.

Other sources: Information Engine; The Simple Truth; WHIS News. (There is also a YouTube video, although I can't access it from China, so I'm unaware of its contents.)

I'm pretty sure this is just made up (or a hoax?). Can this be confirmed/denied?

The image in the news article shows an exhausted looking woman surrounded by 17 babies. Their motor skills are too advanced for babies born "last weekend". The woman also appears to be of a different ethnicity to the babies. (Although, there might be some explanation for this that I haven't thought of.)

It also seems at odds with how difficult it is to give multiple births; Wikipedia writes:

There have been a few sets of nonuplets (nine) in which a few babies were born alive, though none lived longer than a few days.

Rebecca J. Stones
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    This would also be a good question for biology.SE. I "learned" (heard rumors) in med school that more than 8 siblings are deemed impossible, because after three divisions, the cells lose their omnipotence. – Alexander Dec 13 '15 at 11:40
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    @Alexander omnipotence?! – Michael Dec 14 '15 at 04:25
  • @Michael From latin [Omnipotens](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/omnipotens#la) = almighty. This means that they can produce all types of cells that form our body. Seems to be also called [Totipotency as per this article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell). Compare [wikipedia article on cell potency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_potency#Totipotency). – Alexander Dec 14 '15 at 08:27

1 Answers1

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No, this is a fictional article.

The source of the article is the World News Daily Report (WNDR).

Their disclaimer page explains:

WNDR assumes however all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any persons, living, dead, or undead is purely a miracle.

Oddthinking
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    WNDR is not to be confused with [WorldNetDaily](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldNetDaily). – Andrew Grimm Dec 13 '15 at 09:32
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    It just didn't strike me as satire given how many Google hits came up. (Also, feel free to delete this question; I didn't mean to lower the quality of the site. Obviously, we don't want each satire article being "debunked" this way.) – Rebecca J. Stones Dec 13 '15 at 09:41
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    @RebeccaJ.Stones, you didn't lower the quality of the site. Apparently, the record is 8 babies now: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1142566/The-mother-baby-bumps-Octuplets-mum-bares-ENORMOUS-stomach-just-days-giving-birth.html – George Chalhoub Dec 13 '15 at 10:31
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    @RebeccaJ.Stones Given peoples' apparent inability to differentiate satire from reality, posting reliable answers to such questions is part of this site's mission. – matt_black Dec 13 '15 at 11:59
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    @RebeccaJ.Stones This is different to other satire articles in that non-satire news-scraping sites had picked it up and were passing it off as real news (also, I'm a touch skeptical that it was intended as *actual* satirical comedy, WNDR looks like it could be one of those "satire" sites that doesn't aim to be funny or satirical, but rather aims to create viral click-friendly hoaxes that generate traffic when people believe them; using the term "satire" as a shield - [realorsatire.com seems to agree](http://realorsatire.com/worldnewsdailyreport-com/)) – user56reinstatemonica8 Dec 13 '15 at 21:59
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    "The source of the article is the World News Daily Report (WNDR)." Prove it. – George Chalhoub Dec 14 '15 at 02:32
  • @George: Are you asking me to show the article was published in WNDR? Easy. The link is in the question. Are you asking me to prove this was the original source, and it isn't plagiarised. Much harder, and I would rather disclaim that I know that to be true. – Oddthinking Dec 14 '15 at 03:05