A 10-year-old Colombian girl almost died when she became one of the world’s youngest mothers after giving birth to a healthy daughter.
The pre-teen is a member of the northern indigenous Wayuu tribe in Colombia. She was 39 weeks pregnant when she underwent a Caesarean section and gave birth to a girl.
It was the first time she’d visited a doctor about her pregnancy. She arrived at the hospital bleeding and crying over the “enormous” pain of the contractions.
Because of her age, doctors decided to do a Caesarean. Both the mom and daughter — who weighed 5 lbs at the time of birth — are doing well now.
However, the young mother is refusing to breastfeed the infant, and both are still confined to the neo-natal unit
The girl, who has not yet been named, has not revealed to the media who the father is….in any case the community has remained tight-lipped as to the identity of the father, with some Colombian newspaper speculating it is a 15-year-old boy. Others believe it is a 30-year-old man.
Although the father, who remains unknown, could be prosecuted for underage sex, the country’s constitution does allow some autonomy and to retain certain cultural heritages to the Wayuu — including giving birth at a young age.
It allows the tribe to maintain its own sovereignty and certain cultural heritages, of which one is said to be the giving birth of children at an extremely young age.
Regardless, the director of the hospital, Efrain Pacheco Casadiego, criticizes the practice: “At a time when the girls should be playing with dolls, they go to having to take care of a baby.
