{"id":3485,"date":"2022-11-22T20:15:43","date_gmt":"2022-11-22T20:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historydefined.net\/?p=3485"},"modified":"2022-11-22T20:23:54","modified_gmt":"2022-11-22T20:23:54","slug":"lina-medina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.historydefined.net\/lina-medina\/","title":{"rendered":"Lina Medina, the world’s youngest mother gave birth at 5"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
In 1939, in the remote area of a small Peruvian village, Lina Medina became what historians consider the youngest mother in the world at the age of 5. While hard to believe, doctors determined that Lina was physically able to get pregnant due to a rare medical condition called precocious puberty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many of the circumstances around the young girl\u2019s pregnancy remain unknown to this day, and her situation has baffled doctors and drawn public attention for the last century.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLina Medina with her baby<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Lina Medina\u2019s Pregnancy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
It was early spring when Lina\u2019s parents noticed their daughter\u2019s engorged stomach. As one of nine kids, the family lived in one of the poorest villages in Peru. But upon discovering their daughter\u2019s stomach, they feared she had a tumor or some other deadly condition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They rushed her to the closest hospital in Pisco \u2014 a two-hour drive through the bumpy roads of Peru\u2019s countryside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Upon examination by the doctors, it was determined that the cause of Lina\u2019s enlarged stomach wasn\u2019t due to cancer \u2014 she was in her seventh month of pregnancy. Based on her September birthday, it was determined that Lina got pregnant at the age of 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Word began to spread across the world that there was a five-year-old girl in Peru pregnant, as fascination and curiosity took over the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Newspapers and reporters from all over the world asked the interview her, and there were scientific institutions that wanted to record her birth for educational purposes. However, Lina and her family adamantly did not want to be a part of the international attention that this was bringing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just a few weeks after the pregnancy was discovered by doctors, Lina gave birth to a baby boy via a Caesarian section on May 14, 1939. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The small size of her body didn\u2019t allow for a natural birth, but the baby\u2019s delivery was successful and safe. The baby was named Gerardo, after Dr. Gerardo Lozada, the overseeing doctor on Lina\u2019s case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Front page headlines worldwide read, \u201cFive-and-Half-Year-old Mother and Baby Reported Doing Well.\u201d Doctors worldwide tried to study and understand how a four-year-old girl could get pregnant and successfully carry a healthy baby to full term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After giving birth, Lina brought the baby back to their village, where they lived a mostly normal life. Doctors who visited her post-birth determined that Gerardo was a \u201cperfectly normal\u201d baby with an \u201cabove normal intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the first several years of baby Gerardo\u2019s life, he was raised to believe that Lina was his sister \u2014\u00a0not his mother. But when Lina was 15, he discovered that his sister was his mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Precocious Puberty<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
When the doctors delivered Lina\u2019s baby, they confirmed that despite her young age, Lina had fully mature reproductive organs. The genetic condition, called precocious puberty, results in a child\u2019s body developing and changing into that of an adult before age 8 for girls or age 9 for boys. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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