A nine-year-old gave birth to a baby girl in Brazil's western Amazon jungle, a pregnancy that was the youngest on record and may have been the result of rape, authorities said on Friday.
"There is no registry of any other Indian girl getting pregnant at such a young age," said Luiza Mello, spokeswoman for the National Health Foundation, which has been responsible for Indian health since 1999.
"It's common for Indian girls to get pregnant early -- many at 11, 12 or 13 -- but not at nine," she said.
The girl was found in the jungle in April by laborers working on a natural gas pipeline linking the Coari oil fields to Manaus City, the National Indian Bureau said.
She was taken to Manaus and hospitalized for three months with malaria, pneumonia and anemia, Mello said.
The girl went into labor on Thursday. The baby, weighing 2.2kg, was delivered by Caesarean section and was reportedly in good health, a bureau official said.
RSS