1939 a Fivce Year Old Girl Gave Birth to Six Pound Baby

Although we can see a tremendous amount of variety in the institute and animal life all around us, both within and between species, many of us however notice extremes in variety amid human beings somewhat disconcerting. While an extraordinarily big canis familiaris or a cat with an unusually long tail may exist regarded equally nothing more a momentarily interesting curiosity or a source of amusement, people who exhibit one of the extremes in human development — whether it be in intelligence, tiptop, weight, or some other feature — have long struggled to avoid being identified as "freaks."

Perchance the most discomfiting tape of this nature involves the youngest person always to give birth, reputedly a five-twelvemonth-former girl — not only considering such a record posits that a child barely of kindergarten age involuntarily underwent an feel we associate with concrete and psychological maturity, but also because it implies the committee of an human activity now considered to be nothing less than child molestation.

Regardless of our squeamishness, we take to annotation that the claim of a five-twelvemonth-old girl giving birth is truthful. Her proper noun was Lina Medina, a Peruvian girl from the Andean hamlet of Ticrapo who made medical history when she gave birth to a boy by caesarean department in May 1939 at the age of v years, vii months and 21 days. Lina's parents initially thought their daughter had a large abdominal tumor, only later they took her to a hospital in the town of Pisco physicians confirmed that her abdominal swelling was due to pregnancy. Lina was eventually transferred to a hospital in Lima, where she delivered a six-pound baby boy by Cesarean section on 14 May 1939 (coincidentally the date on which Mother's Day was celebrated that twelvemonth). Lina'due south father was temporarily jailed on suspicion of incest, but he was released for a lack of testify and authorities were never able to make up one's mind who fathered Lina'south child.

Lina's incredible story was documented in contemporaneous reports by Edmundo Escomel, one of Peru'south preeminent physician-researchers of the flow and a laureate of the prestigious French Academy of Sciences. Escomel'south first correspondence to the editors of La Presse Medicale ^ane (which is undated only appeared in the 13 May 1939 issue) noted that Lina first came to the attention of Dr. Gérado Lozada, master physician of the Hospital of Pisco, when she appeared at that infirmary in early Apr 1939 for evaluation of what was assumed to be a massive abdominal tumor.

Information technology presently became obvious to the stunned Lozada, however, that the little girl was meaning. A medical history revealed that she had been having regular periods since age iii, merely that she had stopped menstruating for the past vii½ months. Additionally, she had fully developed breasts. Further examination revealed a fetal heartbeat, and an 10-ray confirmed the pregnancy. Escomel stated that Lozada had submitted a report about the case to the Academy of Medicine in Lima.

Escomel's announcement^two (dated 20 May 1939) that Lina had delivered a baby male child (on fourteen May) appeared in the 31 May effect of La Presse Medicale. In addition to amending the historic period at which Lina began menstruating (to an incredible 8 months), Escomel submitted a photograph of the gravid v½-twelvemonth-old:

At the end of his piece Escomel noted with some sadness that no one had even so discovered the identity of the father since Lina "couldn't give precise responses." He also stressed the importance of getting adequate intendance for the little girl.

Escomel's final written report³ was published in the 19 December 1939 issue of La Presse Medicale. He commented on a biopsy of one of Lina's ovaries performed on a sample removed at the fourth dimension of the Cesarean section and provided photomicrographs of the stained tissue sections. In the finish, pathologists pronounced Lina to accept the ovaries of a fully mature woman. Escomel posited that the reason behind her precocious fertility could non prevarication in the ovaries themselves but must have stemmed from an extraordinary hormonal disorder of pituitary origin. (As a point of comparison, the average age of commencement flow in the U.South. is 12½.)

The U.S. printing was as well interested in this curious and disturbing story. A United Press written report published in the Los Angeles Times on 16 May 1939 noted:

Dr. Hipolito Larrabure, head of the maternity hospital, who aided Dr. [Geraldo] Lozada [managing director of the Pisco Infirmary] during the [Cesarean] operation, said Lina withstood the functioning in excellent manner. Medical circles here were astonished at the nascence, which they believed without precedent. Dr. Larrabure said the case was "truly phenomenal" and added that he hoped "some United States scientific foundation will send an investigator to Lima to observe the case and bespeak the best manner of caring for the mother and child."⁴

The Los Angeles Times besides reported their own confirmation of the story that same solar day:

The possibility of a girl becoming a mother at the age of 5, as reported on Dominicus from Lima, Peru, was upheld today by Dr. Joseph B. De Lee, obstetrics authority of Chicago Lying-in Hospital.Dr. De Lee cited the case of a Russian girl who became a mother at the age of half-dozen½. Co-ordinate to the physician who reported the case in a German medical journal, Dr. De Lee said, the mother had the physical development of a daughter ten or 12 years one-time.^five

6 months later, the New York Times reported that an American public health official had verified Lina'south remarkable story:

While in Lima Dr. [S.L. Christian, banana surgeon full general of the U.Due south. Public Health Service] examined Lina Medina, the Indian kid-mother whose infant was born terminal May when the mother was nearly v years old. He said that although there was some confusion as to whether the mother was 5 or 6, there was no doubt of the actuality of the case, which he described as the most astonishing thing in his career as a medico.^vi

The following yr the New York Times reported in a follow-up article that a trip was existence organized so Lina could exist "brought to the United States inside a month for test by a five-man medical commission." Plans called for the petty female parent, the baby boy, and the daughter'southward parents to travel to Chicago, but in that location was no follow-upward indicating that the Medina family always made the journey to the U.S.⁷ In 1941, two years after Lina give nascence, the New York Times published an business relationship of an American psychologist who had examined Lina while visiting South America:

Some other rider [on the liner Santa Clara, which was returning from South America] was Mrs. Paul Kosak, specialist in child educational activity at Teachers College, Columbia University. Mrs. Kosak is the but child psychologist who has been permitted to brand studies of Lina Medina, the Peruvian girl who, 2 years ago, gave nativity to a child at the historic period of v years.Mrs. Kosak said she gave a series of intelligence tests to the child and that on the footing of this study she has no doubt the child'due south age was given correctly.

"Lina is to a higher place normal in intelligence and the baby, a boy, is perfectly normal and is physically meliorate developed than the boilerplate Mestiza (Spanish Indian) child," she said. "She thinks of the kid as a baby brother and so does the rest of the family unit."^viii

Lina Medina, son Gerardo, and Dr. Gérado Lozada

Jose Sandoval, an obstetrician who took an interest in Lina Medina'south case and authored a book about her in 2002 said that Lina was a psychologically normal child, that she displayed no other unusual medical symptoms, and that she preferred playing with dolls rather than her ain child.

Lina's male child, named Gerardo (later on Dr. Gérado Lozada, principal dr. of the infirmary in Pisco where Lina's pregnancy was diagnosed), did not acquire until he was 10 years one-time that the adult female he thought to be his sister was in fact his mother. Gerardo died in 1979, only Lina's second son, born in 1972 (thirty-three years after his brother), now lives in Mexico. Lina and her married man currently reside in the "Lilliputian Chicago" commune of Lima, Republic of peru.^nine

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Source: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/youngest-mother/

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