World's youngest mom had baby aged 5 and ended up living a tragic life
Topics: World News, Parenting
Rhiannon Ingle
Featured Image Credit: Creative Commons
Topics: World News, Parenting
Content warning: this article contains subject matter some readers may find upsetting
The world's youngest mother in history had a baby aged just five years old and went on to live an extremely tragic life.
Lina Medina, a young girl from Peru was still a child herself when she gave birth to a baby boy back in 1939, with the harrowing case still remaining an unsolved mystery to this day.
Concerns only started to be raised when Lina, who lived in a remote Andes village, started developing an unusual growth around her stomach with her parents initially fearing she had an abdominal tumor.
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In April of 1939, Lina's mother took her to hospital to see Dr Gérado Lozada for help, where it was soon discovered she was seven months pregnant.
Miraculously, Lina went on to deliver a healthy son via Caesarean section mere weeks later on 14 May aged five years, seven months, and 21 days.
The baby boy was named Gerado, after the doctor who took care of Lina's extremely unusual case.
It was later found by medics that Lina had a rare condition called precocious puberty - a disorder which sees a child experience puberty at an abnormally young age.
Lina was said to have started her periods years before giving birth, with her mother saying she was menstruating by the time she was three years old.
Due to her rare condition, Lina had developed adult sexual organs as a toddler which meant she was physically able to conceive at such a young age.
The most troubling question, however, at the time was who molested and impregnated the child?
Initially, authorities believed Lina's tragic case was a result of incest turning their suspicions to her father, Tilburelo, who was arrested and charged with sexual assault.
However, the man was subsequently released over a lack of evidence.
Still to this day, the identity of the boy's father and the man who assaulted five-year-old Lina has never been revealed.
Flash-forward some years and Lina married a man named Raul Jurado and had a son in 1972 - making him over 30 years older than his half-brother born in 1939.
Gerado went on to live until the age of 40, but tragically passed away from bone disease in 1979 just a handful of years after his little brother was welcomed into the Medina family.
Various reports suggest Gerado wasn't told Lina was his mother until he was 10 years old, having previously believed she was his sister.
Other reports state just how little help Lina received after the medical anomaly that shocked the world.
Husband Raul told the press: "She got no help that I know about. She thinks governments never deliver."
Speaking when Lina was now a 68-year-old woman, Raul told Telegraph India she was living in a 'cramped house in a poor, crime-ridden district' in Peru.
It's unclear if Lina is still alive today. She remains the youngest person to have ever given birth.