Johannesburg- A 13 year-old teenager became the youngest mother in Eastern Cape New Year babies.
In a statement the Eastern Cape Department of Health said the province has welcomed about 246 babies on New Year’s Day.
The EC Health Department Spokesperson Mkhululi Ndamase said the first child was born at 12:05am at the Xhora Community Health Centre and it was a girl weighing 3.4kg.
Among those new babies, a baby girl weighing 2.7kg was born to a 13 year-old teenage mother at Sipetu Hospital in KwaBhaca.
Ndamase said the 13 year-old mother was one of the 15 are teenagers who gave birth on the New Year’s Day.
In September last year the Department of Basic Education told the Parliament that Eastern Cape accounted for 26% of pregnancies of teens aged between 10 – 14 years old from April 2020 to March 2021.
Despite these shocking statistics, reports on prosecution of men responsible for these pregnancies are barely available in the public.
In welcoming these new bundles of joy the Eastern Cape Health MEC Nomakhosazana Meth also expressed concerns at the rate at which adolescent girls are getting pregnant.
Meth said: “We are calling on young girls and boys to abstain from sex or use condoms or an appropriate contraceptive they are already sexually active.”
Of the 246 new babies Ndamase said 133 of them are baby-girls while 113 of them are boys.
Meth said: “After the two years we have had because of COVID-19, having this many bundles of joy is exactly what we needed. We are hopeful their arrival into this world is the beginning of good things.”
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