The incredible story of the youngest mother in the world, giving birth at the age of 5

Lina Medina became the world’s youngest mother when she gave birth to her first child at the tender age of 5. This extraordinary event occurred because she had started menstruating several years before.

Eighty years have passed, but Lina still holds the title of “youngest person in the world to have given birth.” Her remarkable story captured widespread attention for a long time and has been cited as an example in numerous scientific studies and literature worldwide.

Lina was born into a poor family in a small village in the Castrovirreyna province, located in the Andes mountains of Peru in 1933. When Lina was just 5 years old, her mother noticed that her daughter’s belly was unusually enlarged. Lina also frequently complained of abdominal pain.

Her parents took her to a local hospital for examination. Initially, everyone thought she might have a tumor in her abdomen. However, the family was shocked when the doctors informed them that their young daughter was already seven months pregnant.

To ensure there was no mistake, Dr. Gerardo Lozada from the Castrovirreyna provincial hospital even took Lina to the capital city of Lima, where other experts could reexamine her and verify the pregnancy. The subsequent medical examinations confirmed Dr. Lozada’s initial diagnosis.

The contemporary media paid special attention to Lina’s case when she was 5 years old. In addition to speculations about her potential trip to scientific institutions in the United States, an edition of the San Antonio Light newspaper from Texas, published on April 16, 1939, reported that a Peruvian obstetric association had requested to transfer the girl to a national maternity hospital.

Peru’s La Crónica newspaper reported that a North American film production company sent representatives to meet Lina’s family and proposed a payment of $5,000 to make a movie about her. However, Lina’s parents declined the offer.

According to the same newspaper, Dr. Lozada filmed Lina for scientific documentation and showed the captured footage during a working session on April 21, 1939, at the National Institute of Medicine in Peru. Unfortunately, during a subsequent visit to Lina’s remote village, some of the film canisters belonging to Dr. Lozada were dropped into a river while he was crossing “an extremely primitive bridge.”

A month and a half after the initial diagnosis, on May 14, 1939, Lina gave birth to a baby boy through a cesarean section due to her pelvis being too small. At that time, she was just 5 years, 7 months, and 21 days old, becoming the youngest recorded case of childbirth in the history of medicine.

During Lina’s delivery, the doctors were astonished to find that she already had fully developed reproductive organs due to early puberty. Dr. Edmundo Escomel specifically documented Lina’s case in a report published in the medical journal La Presse Médicale, which included details stating that she began menstruating at the age of 8 months, contradicting a previous report suggesting that pubescent females have regular menstruation starting at the age of 3.

Lina’s son, Gerardo, was born weighing 2.7 kg. The family named him Gerardo after the doctor who delivered him. Gerardo grew up believing that Lina was his older sister. It wasn’t until he turned 10 years old that he learned the shocking truth that Lina was, in fact, his biological mother.

Lina has never revealed the identity of the child’s father or the circumstances that led to her pregnancy. Although the father was initially arrested on suspicion of child