According to a video report (below) by Univision's Primer Impacto, a 10-year-old girl recently gave birth to a baby in Colombia.
The girl is a member of the Wayuu tribe from the La Guajira Peninsula in Manaure, Colombia.
The pre-teen never consulted with a doctor and gave birth to her baby daughter after 39 weeks via C-section.
Efrain Pacheco Casadiego, director of the hospital where the girl gave birth, told a Colombian radio station: “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."
Colombian law guarantees the Wayuu land and autonomy, and allows for the indigenous tribe to maintain their own sovereignty.
Little information has been reported about the baby’s father who has remained anonymous.
Yikes!!! I might be naive, but at what age exactly does the human body starts to develope into an adult???..6?-8?
There Can Be Only One.
Girls usually experience menarche around 12 or so. It's not unusual for a girl to hit that point early, however. In the US, a girl who is exhibiting signs of menarche as early as 9-10 can be put on certain medications to delay the onset until 12.
But a baby at 10 means she was probably ovulating / menstruating at 9, and the custom in her tribe may be to marry her off at that point.
You mean to say this is common in her tribe? WOW!!! I guess it only takes 9 years to enjoy being a kid and the rest of the years where're physically an adult. Life isn't fair.
There Can Be Only One.
One would expect to see this sort of thing 600 years ago (even then it was pushing the limits a bit, but in this day and age, that is just plain ridiculous.
No CHILD should have to go through motherhood; or fatherhood, for that matter. The demands are far too high for a child to manage on their own. Some adults even have trouble with it. But a child should have the chance to BE a child and grow to an adult before becoming a parent.
Those who surrender essential liberties for temporary security deserve neither and lose both. - Benjamin Franklin
"just plain ridiculous. .. No CHILD should have to go through motherhood; or fatherhood, for that matter. .. a child should have the chance to BE a child and grow to an adult before becoming a parent."
It's all very well to ridicule nature, and to use words like "should", when we read about things happening that we wouldn't want for our own children, but I don't see any humane and reliable way of preventing totally any of the minority of young women who become biologically adult, and therefore fertile, barely a decade or so after they were foetuses themselves, from becoming sexually active and conceiving children of their own. Do you?
Ten is young, I grant you, but I doubt that this is the first time this has happened anywhere in the world, thinking back to what the girls and boys in my class at school were like when I was ten, almost fifty years ago, in Devon, and doubt it'll be the last.
The family will rally round, I'm sure. She won't have to bring this baby up on her "own", especially not now that the world's media are watching. The pregnancy had a happy ending, and I expect the whole story will too. The mother's womb will probably heal completely from the surgery, and she'll probably be able to have her second baby without needing a Caesarean section.
In ten years time, I doubt she'll be much different because of her ordeal, from any of the millions of "gymslip mums" who get pregnant at 12, 14 or 16 rather than 10, and give her parents a lot of extra work, looking after their grandchildren as if they were their own children, whilst their real, under-aged mums get to do other things that teenagers normally do. That's what typically happens when young girls get pregnant. Life goes on.
Mind you, I bet she's been "grounded" by her mum and dad now though.
What a lovely looking baby! And healthy, as far as we have been told. On balance, this isn't a story of BAD news. Just a bit unusual.
Doubtful she's been "grounded". She was likely married off as soon as she began her cycles. This is probably expected. And the baby's father isn't likely to be an age-mate to the mother, it's likely to be a significantly older male (though possibly still a youth).
Be careful applying first-world assumptions to cultures that are not your own.
I was talking "tongue in cheek" in the one sentence of my posting you picked on to reply to, about her being "grounded". You, however, appear to be perfectly serious, when writing, "She was likely married off as soon as she began her cycles. This is probably expected. And the baby's father isn't likely to be an age-mate to the mother, it's likely to be a significantly older male (though possibly still a youth)."
I reckon that YOU are the one in greater need to "be careful applying first-world assumptions to cultures that are not your own", assumptions of dissimilarity between cultures, rather than assumptions of similarity in your case.
Best wishes.
wow, this si something!
Samuel
"Never consulted a doctor?" But had a C-section? Does anyone else see a small contradiction here?
It's probable that women in an indigenous tribe commonly give birth without doctors. It's fortunate that this girl was an exception.
If freedom means anything, it is the liberty to tell others what they do not want to hear.
I assumed that the author meant, "had no prenatal care". That isn't uncommon, and she may have been too small to give birth vaginally, so she was taken to the hospital in labor. She likely was overseen by a midwife-type during her gestation; an old village woman, or possibly her monther.
They knew she was 39 weeks, so someone must have been keeping track somewhere.