11-year-old set to become Britain’s youngest mother

The girl is expected to give birth soon

Police in United Kingdom are currently investigating the case of a pregnant 11-year-old girl who will become Britain's youngest mother.

The girl who cannot be identified, is expected to give birth soon, and the father is understood to be a minor also, and only a few years older than the girl.

Few details can be made public for legal reasons and local authority is seeking strict reporting restrictions to protect the privacy of the minors.



Britain has faced an issue of teenage pregnancies for a long time. However, official figures show they have reached their lowest level in almost 70 years. The decline has been linked to improvements in access to contraceptives and abortion services.

In 2016, 25,977 women aged 19 and under had babies in England and Wales.

Britain's current youngest age of giving birth is 12. In 2014, a 12-year-old girl gave birth and the father of the child was 13. Their daughter is now looked after by her 28-year-old grandmother while the mother attends school.



Tressa Middleton, another British national, gave birth in 2006 when she was only 12, after being raped by her brother. Sean Stewart, of Bedford, became Britain’s youngest-known father at age 12 in 1998.

This story originally appeared in The Guardian