World Youngest Mother

Lina poses with her doctor, her 11-month-old son, and Dr. Lozada.

Credit: Medical Archives
Copyright: Medical Archives

Peruvian five-year-old Lina Medina, accompanied by her
11-month-old- son Gerardo, and Doctor Lozada who attended
her son's birth, are shown in this 1940 file photo taken
in Lima's hospital.

When her child was born by Caesarean section in May 1939,
Medina made medical history, and is still the youngest
known mother in the world.

Lina Medina's parents thought their 5-year-old daughter
had a huge abdominal tumor and when shamans in their
remote village in Peru's Andes could find no cure, her
father carried her to a hospital.

Just over a month later, she gave birth to a boy.

Medina was born on September 27, 1933 in the small village
of Paurange.

She was only 5 years 8 months old at the birth of her
child on Mother's Day, May 14, 1939.

Born at full term at Lima's maternity clinic, her child
was taken through a caesarian operation (Dr. Lozada and
Busalleu, operators, Dr.Colretta, anesthesiologist) .
The child (boy), weighing 2,700 grams, was well formed
and in good health. Child and mother were able to leave
the clinic after only a few days.

Doctor Lozada has conducted very detailed studies since
the diagnostic of the pregnancy which aroused much
curiosity in the country; he took an x-ray of the child
and her baby,established a diagnostic of the fetal situation
observed the state of functionality of the little mother
who had begun menstruating at the age of 8 months. At
four years old she had already developed breasts as well
as pubic hair, her body proportions were a bit amazing
and her bone hardening a bit advanced, things that are
often observed in cases of such premature pregnancy.

After taunting from schoolmates, Medina's son, Gerardo
who was named after one of the doctors who attended Medina
and who became their mentor - discovered when he was 10
that the person he had grown up believing to be his sister
was in fact his mother.

Gerardo died in 1979 at age 40 from a disease that attacks
the body's bone marrow, but it was said it was not clear
there was any link with his illness and the fact his mother
had been so young at his birth.

Medina herself married and in 1972 had a second son, 33
years after her first. Her second child now lives in Mexico.