A 10-year-old Indian girl that was allegedly raped severally by her uncle before getting pregnant has given birth to a baby girl, though she is not aware that she has a child of her own now.
During her pregnancy, the girl was told her bulge was because she had a big stone in her stomach.
The baby was delivered by Caesarean section in Chandigarh, weighing 2.5 kilograms.
According to Indian health officials, both the little girls and the newborn are doing fine.
The girl’s pregnancy was discovered in mid-July after she complained of stomach aches and her parents took her to hospital.
Indian courts turned down pleas to have an abortion on grounds that she was too far into her pregnancy, following doctors’ advice that termination of the pregnancy would put the girl’s life at risk.
The baby was born prematurely at 35 weeks, and has been placed under the neo-natal intensive care unit. The 10-year-old is also expected to stay in hospital for the next few days.
BBC reports that the parents of the little girl did not want anything top do with the baby, and did not even look at her.
Child welfare activists who interact with the 10-year-old on a regular basis say that the pregnancy was discovered so late because the girl had no idea about it – she is very innocent and had no idea what had happened to her.
Her parents also missed the telltale signs of her pregnancy perhaps because she’s “a healthy, chubby child”. Besides, they couldn’t imagine that their daughter could be pregnant at 10.
