Nothing is shocking about a young girl giving birth; however, the news of a young girl who is just five years old, giving birth does turn heads. 

Lina, who was about to turn six in a couple of months, became the youngest woman on earth to give birth. The national media showered a lot of attention to the family, but Lina’s family decided to stay away from the spotlight. The baby’s father was not disclosed; however, later, the horrifying details come to light.

Read further to get more insight into Lina’s life in addition to finding out how she pregnant plus how her life changed after the delivery.

Lina Medina

This is the story of Lina Medina, who, in 1939, at the young of five, gave birth to a baby boy. Belonging from a small village in Peru, Medina’s parents noticed the increasing size of their daughter’s abdomen. Worriedly they took their daughter to visit a doctor in fear of the swelling being a tumor. The doctor was based in Lima, and the family had to travel a considerable distance to find out that their daughter was pregnant. At that time, she was in her third trimester and would go into delivery six weeks later.

Lina Medina’s Early life to Pregnancy

Lina was born on September 23, 1933, to a low-income family living in a remote village in Peru. She had eight siblings, so her family was tight on money. She lived a normal life like a kid should before her belly started getting abnormally big for her age. Her parents, worried that it might be a tumor, took her to a doctor far away from their village for diagnosis and treatment. The shocking news of her being pregnant was confirmed by the doctor, who told them that she would soon give birth as she was already seven months pregnant.

Diagnosis of Early Puberty

The news was surprising to Lina’s family and the rest of the world, but the information was not a complete surprise for the doctors who specialized in pediatric endocrinology. They diagnosed Lina’s condition as a case of precocious puberty. This rare condition causes a young child under the age of eight to reach puberty as an adult would. The kids who face this condition will go through the same changes a teenage boy or girl goes through puberty. Boys face a more resonant voice, hair on the face, and growing sexual organs where girls will go through early menstruation, and their breasts will increase in size.

There is no definite reason for precocious puberty, although there is evidence that sexual interaction at young ages can aggravate it. It is sporadic as it affects one kid out of ten thousand, but it is more common in girls than boys. 

Lina Medina’s First Period

As the news spread, the journalists became hungry for more information. They interviewed Lina’s doctors. That is when Edmundo Escomel reported that Lina was only eight months old at the time of her first period. Before his statement, rumors of her having her first period at the age of three spread nationwide. Further investigation led to the revelation that Lina had a fully developed woman’s body form, such as enlarged breasts, wide hips, and bone growth that ordinary people achieve after puberty. 

Her Pregnancy

Even after her diagnosis of precocious puberty, many unanswered questions were remaining. How did she get pregnant? Who made her pregnant? The victim was just five years old, who probably didn’t know what was happening to her, so she couldn’t have answered those questions. She never said anything about what happened to her. Even the doctors could not get a definite answer.

Father’s arrest

Medina’s father was suspected of sexual abuse, hence was arrested momentarily on harassment charges. He was later released as there was no concrete evidence or witnesses against him; the police could not keep him for longer. The father stressed that he had not done anything of the kind.

In 1955 an article about this case revealed that there were traditional or festivals in small villages located in Peru in which the residents would hold orgies, and rape was an integral part of those festivals. Now children cannot stay away from festivities, so there is a high chance that Lina became a victim of such celebrations. Without Lina’s testaments, this is the only heart-wrenching explanation to come out.

No Privacy

When news like this comes out, everyone wants to know what happened. After national media, the news spread like wildfire throughout the world. 

Once Lina Medina’s Pregnancy became generally known, it caused garnered attention from all over the world. Thousands of dollars were offered to Lina’s family by international and national media to interview the family. Some media companies even offered to bring the family to America. The media made a circus of the whole story; hence the Medina family refused to say anything to the press.

False Accusations

After the family refused to speak to any media outlet, there was an expected outrage from people. They would accuse the family of creating a fake fiasco. However, it has now been more than eighty years to this whole situation, and since then, Medina’s family has not tried to make any money on it. Other than that, there is also sufficient evidence provided by the hospitals to prove her Pregnancy.

Proof of Pregnancy

As mentioned above, there is plenty of evidence to prove that she was, in fact, pregnant at the age of five. Her medical files from the hospital showed her X-rays, which clearly shows her baby’s skeleton inside her womb. There are even pictures, although not a lot, in which you can see a pregnant Lina Medina. 

Staying away from the spotlight

Even after all the proof provided, media companies were still after the family for interviews; however, the family declined every offer. Lina herself would abstain from answering any question or doing interviews for the rest of her life.

Giving Birth

Considering Lina’s background, both financial and family, the medical care she was provided with was much better than she could have gotten otherwise. After six weeks of her diagnosis, she delivered a normal healthy boy. She went through a C-section as her nimble body could not bear childbirth due to a narrow birth canal. 

Life After Giving Birth

Lina’s parents named the baby boy Gerardo after the doctor who helped Lina in her first checkup. After the mother and baby, discharged from the hospital, they made their way back to the village. There was no news from the family for two years until an expert Paul Koask went to meet the family in Peru. The child specialist Koask reported that everything looked normal with the baby, and Lina was quite intelligent for her age. She did find out that the family and Lina both think of Gerardo as Lina’s baby brother. The family was functioning normally.

Medina with her child

An obstetrician who observed Medina revealed in her book that Lina chose to play with dolls rather than her son. However, she is not to blame as she was just a kid and believed Gerardo to be her baby brother. Expecting a young girl who is just a kid herself to be interested in her child is asking too much.

Gerardo

Unlike Medina, who knew that the boy she called brother was her son, Gerardo did not realize that until he became a teenager and found out that his sister was his mother. He gave an interview in 1955, revealing his plans on becoming a doctor in the future. However, he lived a relatively short life as he passed away at the age of 40 years old in 1979 because of bone disease. His death was not related in any way to his mother’s young birth.

Medina’s personal life 

Even after so much publicity, Medina lived a simple life in her home town; she was privileged enough to get a job as a secretary for the same doctor who looked over her case. The doctor funded her education while she worked to make enough to send Gerardo to school. She became a mother to another child in 1972 that she had with her husband, Raul Jurado. They lived their life with simplicity in a poverty-ridden area in Lima, as they never became rich. Medina’s life has been rough from the start. However, we have no idea if she is alive or not, but she must be in her eighties if she is.