16-year-old girl a mother of seven
From correspondents in Buenos Aires
February 25, 2008 08:49am
Article from: Agence France-Presse
AN Argentinian girl who turns 17 today has become a mother of seven after giving birth to her second set of triplets.
The case has drawn attention to teen sex education and contraception laws in the Catholic country.
The girl, 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 will have seven children celebrating her birthday with her today.
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 the 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 said 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.
Jorge Margherit, the director of the Leones hospital where the young mother went for her first four deliveries, said the contraceptive injections he had provided had obviously failed.
"Despite all we did, she fell pregnant and we were surprised to find out that she was again going to have triplets,'' he said.
The girl's obstetrician, Veronica Torres, said the pregnancy occurred without any form or fertility treatment, making her repeated delivery of triplets "very rare".
The girl's frequent pregnancies occurred despite her receiving sex education information, according to social worker Ester Ocampo.
The demands of caring for so many little children prevent the girl from attending school.
But the municipality of Leon has stepped up to provide the young mother with a tract of land, where the provincial government has built a house for the large family. It is currently occupied by the girl's brother.
Free nappies and electricity are also being supplied, and neighbours are said to be helping out.
This is sick, at 14 all ready had a two year old baby! Babies having babies 
