No, that’s not a typo. An 11-year-old girl gave birth to a baby boy in the Northeast. She and the baby are both doing fine, but are not being named in order to protect their privacy. Naturally, there are significant health concerns for a child of this age giving birth. “The textbooks don’t even tell you how to deal with a 10-year-old; it’s completely different even though we understand the basics.” Dr. Abdulla Al-Khan, a leading high-risk obstetrician noted to Fox News.
In a child this young, whose body is not even close to built to carry a child yet, pregnancy can cause a lot of damage, some of it permanent. An 11-year-old’s bones aren’t even completely fused, so putting them under the immense pressures of pregnancy is dangerous enough. Pair that with the potential risks of pumping an under-developed body full of pregnancy hormones (which could stunt her growth) and potential injuries to a pelvis and vagina that are not yet developed enough to sustain childbirth and you have a very high risk pregnancy indeed.
Extremely young patients also risk pre-eclampsia, pre-term labor and delivery, birth defects, stillbirth, fatal fatty liver issues and more. “Think about how difficult a pregnancy is for someone in their 20’s or 30’s…the aches, pains, the sleep deprivation,” Al-Khan says. “Now imagine that in a child.”
The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world. One-third of girls get pregnant before the age of 20, according to the Center for Disease Control. Talking to your children about conception and contraception early, far earlier than most of us want to believe in necessary, is an important step in protecting your child.
