The Archive · 1939

Mother Aged' Five Cries For Doll

Lina Medina, the five-year-old mother, thrust away her week-old son in hospital at Lima, Peru, on May 20, and whined: "Take that thing away. I want my doll" Lina's tattered rag doll was placed in her little arms to be kissed and fondled. Her baby was put in his crib at her bedside.

Doctors attending history's youngest mother say she is too young to possess mother love, and that it will be at least another six years before she takes pride in her son.

£300-a-week Offer Lina's parents have been inundated with offers from American promoters who want to show their daughter and her baby to the public.

"One man offers £300 a week," said a hospital official to the Sunday Pictorial. "But we're hoping the Peruvian Government will make Lina its ward to prevent exploitation, which would be fiendish even if it made her a millionaires."

Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.

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