In 1939, the record for the youngest mother in the world broke when Lina Medina, at 5 years, seven months, and 21 days of age gave birth through C-section to a healthy baby boy.
In early 1939, Tiburelo Medina and Victoria Losea, parents in a village in Peru, noticed that their daughter had an enormous tummy for her age. They took her to see a doctor in Lima to check if it was a tumour.
The doctor, however, had a surprising discovery for her parents. Their 5 years old daughter was seven months pregnant. On May 14, 1939, Medina gave birth.
The case garnered a lot of attention and shocked paediatricians. Medina and her family were not interested in the publicity and didn’t pay mind to the International attention garnered.
Lina Medina was born in one of the poorest villages in Peru, on September 23, 1933. She was one of nine children born to her parents.
While her family was dealing with the shock of their daughter being a mother, pediatric endocrinologists didn’t consider the idea that a 5-year-old child could get pregnant as altogether impossible.
They realized that Lina Medina had precocious puberty, a rare genetic condition that makes a child’s body change into that of an adult too early, usually before the age of eight for girls and the age of nine for boys. However, while this condition affects about one in every 10,000 children, it happens more commonly in girls.
While the cause may not easily be identified, research has shown that young girls who were sexually abused tend to experience puberty faster than their peers. Hence the suspicions that precocious puberty might be sped up by sexual contact at an early age.
It remains unknown how she got pregnant or who the father of her son is. Medina and her family rejected offers of thousands of dollars to move to America or have their daughter photographed. They went on to live a quiet life.
