VERY YOUNG MOTHERS

I am not sure if I should call them young women or girls, so I decided to call them young mothers. There were 2 such mothers one was 13 yrs old, who I delivered in 1961, and the other was 12 years who I delivered in a western country in 1965.

The 13 year girl was a very sweet and innocent girl, who has not yet had her first period. I do not know if she knew anything about period’s and where did baby’s came from. Her Mum and Dad had to go interstate to attend a wedding so they left her alone at home with a 16 year male cousin for four days. During the time they were away, the teenagers must have explored sexual experiments. Nothing happened after that. Suddenly nine months after that she was in labour, her mother realised what was going on. On a very hot summer day they (her parents) rugged her in a big thick blanket and brought her to the hospital. I was surprised that nobody noticed anything for all these nine months. I had come across a similar incidence in Dorset, UK when two teenage sisters were trying to protect each other, the younger sister had a baby, who was flushed down the toilet, I was called on a flying squad when the placenta did not come out and the young girl was bleeding. It was in the country, they had no electricity and no running water. Will I ever forget this day? Luckily, I had water, a big light an anethesist, and blood for transfusion. I removed the placenta, gave her a blood transfusion, put a few sutures into her torn outside and saved her life. In This case her mother was never aware that all this was going on.

Now going back to my original 13 year old, I delivered her easily, with tender loving care without stressing her. She had an episiotomy which was sutured. In our college the rule was that couples who are waiting for adoption can be invited for it, after bringing to the attention of the mother, the two can meet outside the hospital gate and do the exchange. We had no legal involvement in this. I told her mother, if anybody asks her what happened to her daughter just tell them she had a cyst on the ovary.  By doing all this I hope I a saved a lot of trauma for a young innocent girl.

The second teenage mother was only 12. She was very mature looking. The school had gone on a picnic with many boys and girls. The little girl called Debbie also had never had a period as yet but she had had some sex education at the school. They played during the picnic as a group not one on one. Debbie started to be very ill after the picnic and they found out that she was four months pregnant, this fitted with the date of the picnic. Nobody could work out who the father was. Later on during pregnancy she became very ill with toxaemia of pregnancy. She had to be in hospital for a week. We successfully induced her at 37 weeks; a male baby weighing 7 pounds 2 ounces was born in good condition, both the mother and baby did well, there were as far as I know, no legal issues. Debbie was their only child and her mother was very happy to look after her grandson.