Lina Medina
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Lina Medina, her son Gerardo, and Dr. Gerardo Lozada |
Lina Medina (born
September 27 1933 in
Paurange,
Peru) gave birth at the age of 5 years, 7 months and 21 days and is the youngest confirmed mother in
medical history. This
world record is closely followed by a similar case in Russia.
Lina was brought to a
hospital by her
parents at the age of 5 years because of increasing
abdominal size. She was originally thought to have had a
tumor, but her doctors determined she was in the seventh month of pregnancy. Dr.
Gerardo Lozada took her to
Lima, the capital of Peru, prior to the
surgery to have other specialists confirm that Lina was in fact
pregnant. A month and a half later, on
May 14,
1939, she gave birth to a boy by a
caesarean section necessitated by her small
pelvis. The surgery was performed by Drs. Lozada and Dr. Busalleu, with Dr. Colretta providing
anaesthesia. Her case was reported in detail by Dr.
Edmundo Escomel to
La Presse Medicale, along with the additional details that her
menarche had occurred at 8 months of age, and prominent
breast development by 4 years. By age 5 her figure displayed
pelvic widening and advanced
bone maturation.
Her son weighed 2.7
kg (5.9
lbs) at birth and was named Gerardo after her doctor. Gerardo was raised believing that Lina was his sister, but found out that she was his mother at the age of ten. He grew up healthy but died in
1979 at the age of 40 of a disease of the
bone marrow.
There was never evidence that Lina Medina's pregnancy occurred in any but the usual way, but she never revealed the father of the child, nor the circumstances of her impregnation. She refused an interview with
Reuters in
2002. Medina later married Raúl Jurado, who fathered her second son in
1972. They live in a poor district of Lima known as
Chicago Chico ("Little Chicago").
There are two published photographs documenting the case. The first one, of poor photographic quality, was taken around the beginning of April, 1939, when Medina was seven and a half months into pregnancy. Taken from Medina's left side, it shows her standing naked in front of an inconclusive backdrop (either the side wall of a house with the sun shining on her, or a light-diffusing blanket in a room with an overhead light pointed toward the front of her body). This is the only published photograph of Lina taken during her pregnancy. This photograph is of significant value because it proves Medina's pregnancy as well as the extent of her physiological development. However, this photograph is not widely known outside medical circles. The other photograph is of far greater clarity and was taken a year later in Lima when Gerardo was eleven months old.
Although the case was called a hoax by some, a number of doctors over the years have verified it based on
biopsies,
X rays of the fetal skeleton
in utero, and
photographs taken by the doctors caring for her. Extreme degrees of
precocious puberty in children under 5 are very uncommon but not unheard of. Pregnancy and delivery by a child this young remains extremely rare because extremely precocious puberty is treated to suppress
fertility, preserve growth potential, and reduce the social consequences of full sexual development in childhood, and because termination of such pregnancy is more widely available now than in the early 20th century.
*
Precocious puberty*
The Telegraph (Calcutta, India): Six decades later, world's youngest mother awaits aid*
An entry in French from the Dictionary of Medical Science, relaying the account of Edmundo Escomel in May 1939 (
English translation)
*
The world's youngest mother*
A Detailed Snopes.com article on the subject
