10-Year-Old Gives Birth To Baby Daughter In Colombia

A 10-year-old girl in Colombia has given birth to a baby daughter without any advance care, horrifying many in the South American country.

The girl appeared at a hospital earlier this week, bleeding heavily and in considerable pain, according to a report from Univision’s Primer Impacto network. The report states she gave birth to a 5-and-a-half pound baby, and had not previously seen a doctor at any point during her pregnancy.

The identity of the young mother remains unknown. There is also no knowledge of who fathered her child, or how her pregnancy occurred. According to the report, the girl is a part of the Wayuu tribe, a group that is immune to certain Colombian laws. Members of the girl’s community have reportedly kept quiet about the girl’s child.

Primer Impacto’s report adds that the new mother understands very little about motherhood, and does not wish to breast-feed her baby.

According to Colombian health officials, the girl is not the first member of the Wayuu tribe to become a mother earlier than expected in life. Efraín Pacheco Casadiego, director of the hospital where the girl gave birth, told RCN La Radio:

“We’ve already seen similar cases of Wayuu girls. At a time when [the girls] should be playing with dolls, they go to having to take care of a baby. It’s shocking.”

Disturbing as this story is, the girl is not the first child to give birth well before becoming a teenager. A 10-year-old Mexican girl gave birth to a baby boy in 2011, and in August 2010 an 11-year-old Mexican girl had a child after being denied an abortion by the local Justice Department.

[Via NY Daily News]