The World’s Youngest Mother: Lina Medina Gave Birth To Baby at 5 Years Old

Lina Medina was five years, seven months, and 21 days old at the time of her son Gerardo’s birth, and she's the youngest mother on record. 

Lina’s parents were worried. Lina, one of nine children in this poor family of the Peruvian Andes, had a seemingly inexplicable abdominal growth — which was growing larger by the week.

Fearing she had cancer, Lina’s parents brought her to the doctor. The Peruvian girl was cancer-free; she was, however, seven months pregnant. Six weeks later, on May 14, 1939, Lina gave birth via Cesarean section to baby Gerardo, who weighed six pounds at birth.

In performing the c-section, doctors noted that Lina had gone through puberty at a very early age, called “precocious puberty.” Researchers further pieced together shocking details of Lina’s ascent into “adulthood”: she had developed mature breasts by age four and had her first menstrual cycle at two and a half (with some reports suggesting that her first period came at the age of eight months).

She’s never revealed the identity of Gerardo’s father — and, in fact, may not know who it is; the doctor who delivered Gerardo noted that Lina’s mastery of the details of her pregnancy was fleeting, due in part to her young age. But the pregnancy was definitely real.