Yesterday, we shared with you how hormone disrupting chemicals have changed the age of puberty for girls to nine-years-old.
The consequences of such early changes are far reaching, and one that is perhaps most shocking to discover is that a ten-year-old girl has just given birth!
Early menstruation and breast development may lead to early sexual activity. For one little girl, this means she is now a mother.
The Daily Mail reports:
A girl in Spain has become one of the world’s youngest mothers after giving birth at age ten.
She had a child weighing 6lb 6oz during a natural birth last week at a hospital in Jerez de la Frontera, in the southern region of Andalusia.
Both mother and baby have been allowed out of hospital and are in perfect health, but social services are studying the case.
Spanish law does classify “consensual” intercourse with a child under 13 “child abuse”; however, the father is also a minor complicating the issue.
The new child mother is an immigrant from Romania, and her mother has stated to officials that child mothers are “something common in my country”. According to World Health Organization adolescent pregnancy statistics:
- About 16 million women 15–19 years old give birth each year, about 11% of all births worldwide.
- Ninety-five per cent of these births occur in low- and middle-income countries. The average adolescent birth rate in middle- income countries is more than twice as high as that in high-income countries, with the rate in low-income countries being five times as high.
- The proportion of births that take place during adolescence is about 2% in China, 18% in Latin America and the Caribbean and more than 50% in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Half of all adolescent births occur in just seven countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria and the United States.
- Although adolescents aged 10-19 years account for 11% of all births worldwide, they account for 23% of the overall burden of disease (disability- adjusted life years) due to pregnancy and childbirth.
The world record for the youngest child to give birth is five-years-old!
Cultural differences aside, as I shared with readers yesterday, my daughter is nine-years-old, and fortunately still a little girl. I can’t imagine that in a year she could be a mother, if her life was the same as this Romanian child.
Theresa says
It’s interesting that the USA is on that list of countries!
I hit puberty at age 10, let me tell you, that was not fun! It made me hope I would never have a girl in case she would have to go through the same thing.
Heather Dunham says
Wow, that story about the 5yo is amazing! It sounds like that one can’t be blamed on environmental factors, but a rare hormonal irregularity that had her menstruating even as a baby… her reproductive organs were fully developed.
Makes you wonder how often that happens, precocious puberty (as a “natural” aberration — be it a genetic anomaly or whatever, but not due to environmental toxins), but nothing is really noticed unless the child is molested and becomes pregnant.
As weird as it seems, though, that the 10yo in this current story became pregnant and gave birth — I’m really delighted that it was a completely natural birth! Tell that to all the GROWN WOMEN who are told that they are “too small” to have a vaginal delivery! We don’t know how big this 10yo was, but I would wager that — even with precocious puberty — she’s a good sight smaller than most 20yo’s!
pico real says
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Rosana says
read more about this story and you will realize why these people need to go back where they came from.
mihaela says
I was reading about this story and i have to say that i am absolutely shocked, i am romanian and i don’t think in our country this is…. how they saying…..NORMAL….to have a child at their age…..i would say that the parents of those children are to blame, they dont have any values or respect…..maybe is normal in their family to have sex at such an young age but i can tell you that is not the case for all the country , there are decent families back home who found this news as disturbing as i did……the parents should teach their children right from wrong…in my opinion they should get the blame…
MW says
She must;ve got pregnant at the age of 9.What a very early bloomer.
Andreea says
I agree with Mihaela. I too am Romanian and to hear that a 10 year old had a baby is very disturbing. What’s most disturbing is the mother of this child says it’s “common” in Romania. It is absolutly not common!!! What kind of a mother would allow this to happen. At this little girls age I had no interest in boys I was more concerned with playing with my dolls. Children these days are growing up way to fast. Baby’s have baby’s so sad.