Into the hospital at Pisco
(Peru) came a tired, ragged Indian woman from the foothills of the Andes. She
led by the hand a shy little girl, scarcely three feet tall, with chestnut
braids and an enormously bulging abdomen. Pointing to the frightened child, the
Indian woman begged Surgeon Geraldo
Lozada to exorcise the evil spirits which
had taken possession of her. Certain that little Lina Medina had an abdominal
tumor, Dr. Lozada examined her, and received the surprise of his life when he
discovered she was eight monthspregnant, making her the world's youngest mother ever.
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| 5 year old girl pregnant |
Dr. 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 Dr. 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 that she had had prominent breast development by the age of 4. By age 5 her figure displayed pelvic widening and advanced bone maturation.
Her son weighed 2.7 kg (6 lb)
at birth and was named Gerardo after her doctor. Gerardo was raised believing that
Lina was his sister, but found out at the age of ten that she was his
mother. He grew up healthy butdied 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. Dr. Escomel suggested she might not actually know herself by writing that Lina "couldn't give precise responses." Lina's father was arrested on suspicion of rape and incest, but was later released due to lack of evidence. 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"). She refused an interview with Reuters in 2002.
There are two published photographs documenting the case. The first one 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.
source: collected from different source (odee)
