DONALD DUCK
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Friday
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH December 20, 1940.
By Walt Disney
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DUCK
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MAGAZINE
THIS THE
WHY is this picture
so interesting to
the medical men?
What
is there in the photo- graph of a little girl, with what looks like her baby brother, and a doll?
The answer is that this is a picture of the youngest mother in the world, with her son, aged fifteen months.
Linda Medina, of Peru, is just six years old.
Her story is one of the medical mysteries of the world. She has just ar- rived in Chicago, where America's doctors will try to determine the astonish- ing facts of her case.
The baby boy was born, on the operating table, in
a South American hos- pital, while sixty doctors and scientists watched the "miracle.".
Lina Medina, half-In- dian, half-Spanish, was five years old and only three feet tall when she she gave birth to a perfect male child, weighing six pounds.
Nobody thought that mother. or child would survive, but both have grown and flourish. ed and to-day
quite normal.
are
as
The natives of the mountain village where Lina Medina lived regard the event witchcraft, but doctors all over the world have watched this case with intense interest, for, of recent years, there has been a great deal of re- search into the ages at which women can bear children.
✯
IN British countries child
marriages are not only dis- couraged. They are actually forbidden by law. No girl may marry under the age of sixteen.
But the fact remains that even in civilised Britain girls under that age are having to face the responsibilities of motherhood. It is a grave social problem-so far-reach- ing in its complications that a famous British woman aur- geon has investigated it in all its aspects./
She has just published the results of a seven-year in- vestigation into the cases of very young mothers,
Her findings aro astonish- ing and soom to upset many old theories and beliefs.
So much so, in fact, that the surgeon, Dr Letitia Fair- fleld, who is senior medical officer of the general hospitals department of the London County Council, atates, in a paper in The Lancet," the famous medical journal, that she is no advocate of auch early motherhood, osa
PAGE
STARTLED
GIRL DOCTORS
She merely states the facts. And they certainly tend to negative the common idea that very early motherhood may stunt the growth, and even affect the sanity of a girl.
Dr Fairfield's probe into this question lasted {rom 1931 to 1988. Shu had necess to 133,000 births in a group of twenty-four London mater- nity hospitals.
Of these, seventy-four were mothers between the ages of thirteen and sixteen.
Dr Fairfield examined care- fully each of these сазен where, to quote her own words, "nature had been al- lowed to take its course."
The youngest mother was thirteen years and thylce months at the time of her confinement. There were no giris aged twelve, and authen-. ticated cases at this age are, apparently, extremely rare.
Only two are known during the past thirty years.
When Lina Medina's child was born the doctors searched back in the records, and dis- covered that elght was the carllest age known to medical science.
TN the seventy-four cases
surveyed by Dr Fairfold all the mothers made a good recovery, and fow "had any dimeulty.
Lina Medina, six-year- old mother of a fifican- month-old baby boy, ar- riving in Chicago: The astonishing case of the world's youngest mother is arousing interest in youthful mothers among doctors. The results of recent research are given here, by
HAYWOOD LAWSON
"The general impression, re- corded for what it is worth, is that those girls take the ordeal very well. The case records showed not a single reference to unusual anxiety, dopression or nervous in stability."
Only one of the seventy- four girls was mentally de- ficient. Many are described as irresponsible and precocious children who had boon run- ning wild.
'The social · background—・・ bearing in mind that cach: case implies an offence against the law was variod, and to quote the doctor, obscure and tinged with moral Equa- W for the
THE most amazing
case
brought to light by Dr Fairfield's investigation was the story of the youngest mother in London, probably the youngest in Britain.
She was thirteen years and three months. And the al- leged father was only thir- teen.
Of his paternity there can- not be complete certainty, bul all facts seemed to prove it, and the boy himself had, it seems, no doubt at all, for he even went so far as to bor- row his older brother's long trousers and bowler hat, in order to visit his child, in proper style,
THE child of this union was
six pounds in weight-when born, had a cleft palate, but was otherwise quite normal and healthy,
The babies, as a matter of fact, seemed to do less well than the mothers..
The average weight of the seventy-four was six pounds fourteen ounces, which is lega than normal birth weight for children in Britain to-day.
Two babies were stillborn, three died at birth, five hnd deformities of various kinds.
This tends to suggest that there may be a special liability
to deformities in the children of very young mothers, says Dr Fairfield's report.
On the medical and surgical aspects of these young mothers the investigation. shows that previous fears about very early childbirth. may need to be revised.
.
minutes or less. No instance of serious damage was noted.
FOLLOWING Dr Fairfield's
Investigations, the doctors
of Britain and America are: watching the strange case of six-your-old Lina Medina with great interest.
On the question of who is the father of her baby son there is still profound my- stery.
Linn's mother, Donna Loza, a stolid peasant of the Andes, said at the time that she be- lleved that Lina was bitten by a snake called "Tiracha," which, according to Indian. legend, holds strange power over women, sometimes creep ing up on them and sinking its fangs into them as they sleep in the open air.
Lina often slept in the open air in her mountain village.
*
HER father also has
LANE, CRAWFORD, LTD.
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theory. Ho says that there is a pool up in the mountaina called "the pool of birth.” Those who bathe in it find the power to create now life.
Lina used to bathe in this pool.
The doctors in Chicago, who have been waiting to see Lina Medina for a year, will try to solve the mystery of a birth that has baffled the medical- world.
AFTER WHICH POOR LITTLE LINA-MAY-GO-ON— TOUR IN A SIDE-SHOW,
They Went
Doctors have been To Work
sur-
prised to learn that arrival of these babies was very normal, surgical assistance being only very slightly over the rate that is usual in all the hos pitals concerned,
The labours were, with few exceptions, short and easy to an unusual degree, and com- plientions, especially in what doctors term the third stagu of a birth, were rare..
No case of mental or ner- vous breakdown on the part of any of the seventy-four mothers has been traced to date.
DR Fairfield records that in
the sixty-four cases where the method of feeding was noted, fifty-eight babies were breast-fed wholly or in part at the time of leaving the hospital.
More than one-third of these very youthful mothers surprised the doctors by 'de livering their babies in Icss than twelve hours, a remark- able record for first births, which acldom take less than eighteen hours.
By Water
LONDON River,, which has served the city ill as a guide to ralders, has shown that it can still be of use to Londoners.
On its grey waters they went to work.
From Woolwich to Westmins- ter, workers turned up in their hundreds for the first boats.
and
The steamboats, still in the livery in which they used to chug down the river with pleasure seekers, look anything from one to two hours for the complete voyaga with inter-
nediate stops.
All Filled
It cost ninepence. for 11 return ticket, or sevenpenco for a work. man's return.
on.
Air raid warnings did not stop ber.
Just
as trains do, they carried
City workers, soldiers, sailors, all used this new method of transport, which has been devised to lighten the load of ordinary Iand commum!-' cations from the "eastern suburbs to London.
Each vessel accommodates between 180 and 260 people, and all were well alled.
For example, a young pro- fessional dancer, aged fifteen, had a baby, weighing Blb. 14140z. after a labour of 8 hours 45 minutes, the second stage lasting only 1 hour 15 Relioves Boredom
Many people took advantage of the availability of railway seasons and aid tram return tickets to take this alternative route,
minutes. N
The third stage was in all· cases - completed in thirty minutes or less, without any ald or interference. In fifty- seven out of the soventy-threo: cases »ing which there were time records, the period in the third stage was fifteen
The bonts ron at 40-minuto, in- tervals. The service will be speeded up to one every 20 minutes.
•
One passenger remembered the old: London County Counci sleamers on
river
the
vn always thought it would be alce to see them back again," he said. "But it's odd that it should take war to bring 'em out again. Still, it odds a new zest to the boring process of getting to work.”
ANG
By LAKES MORXIS
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Make a
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New Year's Resolution
The SIMPLEST and SPEEDIEST way YOU can help WIN THE WAR is to, give regular CASH DONATIONS to the Government.
Can You Afford $100 per month? Can You Afford $10, per month?
Can You Afford
NO SUM TOO LARGE.
$1
per month?
NO SUM TOO SMALL. Fill in the form below and HELP WIN THE WAR.
Donations to 19-12-40: $1,499,638.26
Remitted to London: £92,389.19.6d.
Hongkong, December
The Manager,
Sir,
1940.
Bank,
Hongkong.
Commencing 2nd. January, 1941, and until further notice, please transfer the sum of $. Monthly to "War Fund, South China Moming Post Ltd." and debit my current account,
Yours faithfully,