Planet Earth is a mysterious and amazing place. There is a tremendous variety of plants, animals and even human beings. Some people still find it disconcerting to find extreme varieties among living things. Whether it be intelligence, weight, height or some other feature, the society we live in marks them as “freaks” and sometimes they have to take extreme measures to hide their true self.
This is the story of Lina Medina, the youngest confirmed mother in medical history. Being a mother is something almost every woman dreams of. They are naturally ready to nurture and provide for the child. Usually, women have babies when they are 18 or mature enough to face the challenges that motherhood throws at them. But in this case, it’s not a 18-year-old or a mature woman. Here’s her story.
Lina Medina was born in 1933, in Ticrapo, Peru, to a silversmith named Tiburelo Medina and his wife, Victoria Losea.
At the age of five years, Lina’s parents noticed that her stomach was bulging. They initially thought that Lina was suffering from a massive abdominal tumor.
She started menstruating at the age of two and a half years.
Apart from the fact that she started menstruating at the early age of two and a half years, Lina was a normal girl who lived a normal life. She was born in one of the poorest regions in Peru and had eight siblings.
Upon noticing her bulging stomach, her concerned parents took her to a shaman in search of a cure.
Her parents started to get concerned when they noticed her large stomach. Since they lived in one of the poorest regions of the country, no modern facilities were available at the time so Lina’s parents took her to a local shaman, hoping to find a cure. Soon they realized that the shaman wasn’t of any help and she needed a doctor.
They took her to a hospital in Pisco, Peru, where Dr. Geraldo Lozada became Lina’s attending doctor.
Dr. Lozada took over Lina’s case. After briefly examining her, he discovered that she was seven-months pregnant. To confirm the pregnancy diagnosis, he decided to take her to a more advanced hospital in Lima. After a thorough diagnosis, their suspicions were confirmed.
Lina was born with a rare condition called “precocious puberty”.
Precocious puberty is basically the early onset of sexual development. Most girls start experiencing puberty around the age of 10 and boys start later at around 11 or 12. But Lina experienced her first menstrual cycle at the age of two and a half or three. By the age of four, she had fully developed breasts and when she was five, her body displayed pelvic widening and advanced bone maturation.
She officially became the youngest confirmed mother in medical history, aged five years, seven months and 21 days on May 14, 1939.
A month and a half after Dr. Lozada transferred her to the advanced hospital in Lima, Lina underwent a C-section and gave birth to a baby boy. The decision to perform a C-section on Lina was made as she was only five years old and her pelvis would be too small to deliver naturally.
Dr. Lozada and Dr. Busalleu, along with Dr. Colareta providing anaesthesia, performed the surgery. The child weighed 2,700 grams (6 pounds), was well-formed, in good health and was named Gerardo after the doctor who delivered him.
Lina never revealed who the father of the child was.
Since Lina never revealed the circumstances surrounding her impregnation, the police focused their suspicion towards her biological father. They arrested him on suspicion of sexual abuse, rape and incest but no evidence was ever found to link the father and he was released.
Throughout the years, many people have called her story a hoax but based on biopsies and X-rays of the fetal skeleton in utero, doctors have verified it as true. There are also photographs showing the doctors taking care of Lina while she was at Lima hospital.
She later married Raúl Jurado and delivered her second son in 1972.
Gerardo was raised believing that Medina was his sister. But at the age of 10, he found out that she was his mother. He lived a healthy and normal life until the age of 40, when a bone marrow disease cost him his life. To help her son through high school, young Lina worked as a secretary in the Lima clinic of Dr. Lozada.
After 33 years, she gave birth to her second son with Raúl Jurado. She is still alive today and refuses any media coverage, turns away any reporters approaching her and still lives in the poor district of Lima.
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