The widely circulated claim about a young mother giving birth to 17 children at once, accompanied by a composite photo, has been thoroughly debunked. This story originated from a satirical website, and one of the images has been manipulated, while the other is taken out of context. The actual world record for the most children delivered from a single pregnancy is eight, held by the American “octuplet mother” Nadya Suleman. Misleading posts containing a composite image have been widely shared on Facebook and other platforms, presenting a fabricated narrative about a young mother achieving an unprecedented feat.

The composite image combines a photo of a heavily pregnant woman with that of a man in hospital attire, which was found on the Facebook page of a doctor named Robert Bitter in 2012, indicating its misuse in the misleading posts.

Further investigation traced the origin of the false claim to a satirical article published in February 2014 on the World Daily News Report website. The article falsely stated that an American woman named Catherine Bridges gave birth to 17 babies in a single pregnancy.