The youngest mother in history who gave birth at the age of 5-years old
The youngest mother in history who gave birth at the age of 5-years old
In 1939, a 5-year-old Peruvian girl from a poor Andean village was brought to a local hospital with concerns about swelling in her stomach. Lina was one of nine children, and her parents feared that the growing bulge in her abdomen was a tumor, but it turned out to be something far more startling.
After giving Lina a full examination, the doctors delivered the shocking diagnosis. Lina was seven months pregnant. On May 14, 1939, Lina delivered a healthy, 6-pound (3-kilogram) baby boy via Cesarean section. She was exactly 5 years, 7 months and 21 days old, making her the youngest mother in recorded history.
An Extreme Case of Precocious Puberty
"It's an absolutely unbelievable story, but these things do happen," says Dr. Erica A. Eugster, a pediatric endocrinologist and professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Lina represents an extreme case of a relatively common childhood condition called precocious puberty. Endocrinologists treat hormonal disorders, and pediatric endocrinologists like Eugster frequently see patients who are exhibiting outward signs of puberty — breast development and menstruation in girls, enlarged genitals and voice changes in boys — at an early age.
Doctors in the U.S. define precocious puberty as secondary sexual development that starts before the age of 8 for girls and the age of 9 for boys (African American children often start puberty a little earlier than white or Hispanic kids).
But a young girl entering puberty at 6 or 7, while unusual, is a far cry from a 5-year-old who has completed puberty, as was the astounding case with young Lina. Could that really happen?
"We do see that, but it's extraordinarily rare," says Eugster. "In the past 10 years, our hospital has diagnosed precocious puberty in four children ages 2 and under, but nothing like this notorious case. One report claimed that Lina started menstruating at 8 months. That's the earliest case of precocious puberty on record and I've never seen anything like that."
The Birth Reported Around the World1
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