10 Year Old Gives Birth To Baby Boy

I ran across the follow article in my internet travels today.

"A 10-year-old Mexican girl has given birth to a baby boy after a 31-week pregnancy, according to reports.

The premature infant, which weighed 3.3 pounds, was born by Caesarian section at the Women’s Hospital in the city of Puebla and is in the intensive care unit recovering from pneumonia.

The young mother, who is from the nearby San Francisco Totimehuacan community, has returned home after the procedure but visits the baby every day to breastfeed, officials said.

The Puebla state Attorney General's Office is now investigating whether the girl could have been raped and who the father is, the hospital’s director Rogelio Gonzalez said, according to UpFrontNewswire."

My first reactions was one of shock. A ten year old? Seriously? What ten year old understands sex, and thinks about having sex? That is totally still the "boys have coodies" stage.

Then, I moved on to disgust and anger. This move didn't take but seconds as the minute I had the reaction above, I realized that my gut reaction was right. Ten year old girls don't think about sex, and more importantly, would not willing participate.

OK, a few of you just started mentally referring to Jerry Springer specials on childhood parenthood. Maybe I am wrong, and some ten year old children actively seek out and participate in sexual acts, but this can't be the norm, and not even close to common in my estimation.

Where does that leave the little girl in this story? Is she a victim? I wonder if I will ever know. Regardless, this is a sad and disturbing story, even if the means of conception were consensual. Despite my outrage and disgust, I wish the baby and child/mother all the luck in the world. They are probably going to need it.

Also, in case you were all suddenly as curious as I was, I found a listing on Wikipedia of the youngest birth mothers. You can see it here. The youngest according to that chart posted there is 5 years, 7 months, and 21 days, and the father of her baby is listed as unknown. From Wikipedia:

"Entering precocious puberty at the age of 8 months(some reports say 2.5 years), Medina gave birth to a 2.7 kg (6.0 lb) son, named Gerardo, by caesarean section on May 14, 1939 in Lima, Peru at age 5. Her parents, who assumed their daughter had a tumor, took her to a hospital, where she was determined to be seven months pregnant. Although Medina's father was arrested on suspicion of child sexual abuse, he was later released due to lack of evidence, and the identity of the biological father who impregnated Medina was never uncovered."