Lina Medina: The youngest mother in history
At the age of five, Lina Medina became the youngest mother in history. Her case shocked the public and doctors. How is it possible that such a young girl gave birth to a child and who is its father?
Lina Medina was born on September 23, 1933, in Peru. Her father was Tiburelo Medina, he worked as a silversmith. Mother Victoria stayed at home, taking care of Lina and her 8 siblings.
At the age of five, Lina’s parents began to notice that the girl’s stomach was growing strangely. So they decided to seek medical help, convinced that their daughter must be suffering from some illness. They suspected that the girl’s abdomen had changed due to a tumor growing in her abdomen.
The fact that everything is completely different became clear after a visit to a clinic in the city of Pisco, where Lina’s parents took her for an examination. The doctors told the parents the news completely surprised and crushed them.
Their daughter is pregnant, seven months pregnant to be exact. The doctors had this information confirmed by other colleagues to be sure because it was hard to believe that a five-year-old girl would become pregnant.
Precocious puberty
The girl’s attending physician was Dr. Gerardo Lozada. It turned out that Lina suffers from a very rare disease, which in layman’s terms can be called “premature puberty”. While other girls enter puberty around the age of eleven or twelve, Lina’s first period came much earlier, it is estimated that she was two and a half or three years old.
Her breasts grew at the age of four and her pelvis expanded at the age of five. This rare condition can also occur in boys, who in turn will have enlarged genitalia, a deeper voice, and a beard.
The disease is estimated to affect one in 10,000 children, with the majority occurring in girls. Interestingly, some studies claim that precocious puberty can be caused by experiencing sexual abuse, which was Lina’s case.
She gave birth to a healthy son, but the father is still a secret
The public and doctors were shocked by the case. There was no doubt that the girl had been sexually abused and there were also concerns about the health of the mother and child. Fortunately, the birth went well, it was led by Dr. Gerardo Lozada.
The baby boy weighed 2,700 grams after birth and was named after the doctor who took care of Lina all the time and also performed the caesarean section that gave birth to Lina’s son. Both the child and Lina did well, and after a few days, they were discharged home from the hospital.
Meanwhile, an intensive investigation was underway to find out who the father of the child was. Lina Medina never disclosed who abused her and under what circumstances.
The shadow of suspicion fell on Lina’s father first. Tiburelo Medina was arrested by the police but later released with all charges against him dropped. There is not a single piece of evidence that he ever abused Lina. Tiburelo Medina himself vehemently denied it.
Over the years, there have been various theories about who the father is. There is often talk of religious rituals that took place in villages like the one Lina lived in. Celebrations here often ended with orgies, during which, unfortunately, rape also occurred.
However, this theory has never been confirmed either. Some people, on the other hand, completely refuse to believe that the story is true. However, there is extensive documentation on the case that contradicts the claims of the skeptics.
A life of seclusion
Lina’s case was covered in the media, it got the attention of people and press from all over the world. The newspaper tried to buy the story from Lina, but she refused despite the hefty fee offered. He has not wanted to comment publicly on this matter for years.
He’ll be celebrating his 90th birthday this year, and it looks like he’s not going to change anything about that just yet. All his life he tries to keep himself aloof. Only interviews with medical personnel who were in contact with Lina are known. University employee Paul Koask stated that she should have treated the child as a younger brother.
After all, little Gerardo believed this until he was 10 years old, after which Lina told him the truth. Obstetrician Jose Sandoval, in turn, let it be known that she “often preferred to play with dolls than with her son.”
It is also known that Lina Medina found work as a secretary at the clinic of the doctor who was at her birth as an adult. She married Raúl Jurado in the early 1970s. They had a son together, born 33 years after she gave birth to Gerard. The family lived together in a slum in Lima.
The first-born son, Gerardo Medina, was born a healthy boy, but unfortunately, he passed away prematurely. He succumbed to leukemia at the age of 40. Lina Medina still refuses requests for an interview, so we will probably never know the whole truth.
