Print

Mail

wiki links

Argentine triplets spark debate over contraception laws

An Argentine girl who turned 17 yesterday has become a mother of seven after giving birth to her second set of triplets, drawing attention to teen sex education and contraception laws in her Catholic country, media reports said.

The adolescent, who was not named because she is a minor, prematurely delivered three girls each weighing 1.7kg last Tuesday, the newspaper La Voz del Interior said, quoting doctors in the central city of Cordoba.

In all she would have had seven children celebrating her birthday with her yesterday.

She already has a two-year-old boy born when she was 14, and another set of girl triplets born 18 months ago, when she was 15. She also suffered a miscarriage in her past.

Doctor Jose Oviedo, the deputy director of the maternity hospital in Cordoba, said the mother and her three newborns were all doing well.

The girl's 49-year-old mother, who lives with her daughter and her growing family in Leones, a town in Cordoba Province, said the children had not been planned for and that her daughter had been taking contraceptive injections.

"We didn't want any more kids. When we found out she was going to have triplets we wanted to die because she doesn't have work, the father of the kids has abandoned her and I am the only one providing economic support," she told the newspaper.

She added that, after the last lot of triplets, she had asked for her teen daughter's fallopian tubes to be tied to prevent further pregnancies.

But doctors refused because Argentine law prohibits such procedures for girls under 21 years of age.

The girl's frequent pregnancies occurred despite her receiving sex education information, according to a social worker dealing with young mothers.
This story has been viewed 1246 times.