'10-year-old Mexican girl gives birth to baby boy after 31-week pregnancy'

10-year-old Mexican girl gives birth to baby boy after 31-week pregnancy
Country's laws prohibit abortion procedures for children under 12

BY Christina Boyle
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Thursday, November 10 2011, 1:48 PM




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.

Mexican state laws say young moms are unable to have abortions unless a girl can prove she was the victim of sexual assault.

The state’s minimum age of consent is 12 and women who undergo abortions in Puebla face a fine or prison sentence if they are unable to prove they were sexually abused.

The laws are currently under review.

The girl, who has not been named, arrived at the medical facility on Oct. 22, suffering from life-threatening complications, including seizures.

Hospital officials said the newborn is in a good condition considering his premature birth and the mother is recovering well.

This is not the first case of a shockingly young girl giving birth in Mexico.

In August last year, 11-year-old Amalia had a child two weeks premature after she was denied an abortion by the local Justice Department during the fourth month of pregnancy.

She was raped repeatedly by her stepfather when she was 10 years old, but local laws do not allow terminations after three months.