What it’s like to have a baby when you’re still a child
‘While my friends were out, I was getting up at 3am for night feeds’
Social services have started an investigation after the shocking news that an 11-year-old girl gave birth last month. The girl, who was just 10 when she became pregnant, is said to be the youngest mother in the UK. A source close to the family said, “She’s now being surrounded by expert help. The main thing is that she and the baby are OK.”
The UK has a higher teenage pregnancy rate than much of Western Europe – 17 out of every 1,000 women who conceive are under 18. Teenage mothers are at a higher risk of missing out on education and their babies are 63 per cent more likely to experience poverty.
Closer has previously spoken to teenage mums Amy Crowhurst and Tressa
Middleton about the reality of having a baby at such a young age. Amy was 13 years old when she had a baby, while Tressa gave birth aged just 12. Here’s how they coped...
Amy Crowhurst made headlines in 2002 when she fell pregnant aged just 12. The then-schoolgirl from Crawley, West Sussex, had sex for the first time with a 15-year-old boy she has never named, who she met at a local leisure centre. Amy, now 31, admitted that the pair didn’t use protection.
In an interview she previously said, “I thought I was an adult and knew it all when I was 12. Looking back, I know I was just a kid and far too young for sex.”
Amy gave birth in March 2003, aged 13, and while her mum helped care for baby Alfie, she struggled and dropped out of education. She said, “I had to be the adult, there was no time for the teenage stuff my friends got up to. I was at home raising a family. While they were out, I was getting up at 3am and doing night feeds. They were drinking and clubbing, a world away from my reality. I didn’t have time to think that I was still growing up too.”
OFF THE RAILS
Aged 16, craving independence, Amy moved into a council flat and fell pregnant again, after a brief reunion with Alfie’s dad. She gave birth to her daughter, Destiny-Rose, in 2006.
Speaking in an interview she said, “Being a teenager and raising two children was tougher than anyone could imagine. But I just had to get up in the morning and get on with it. I taught myself
how to change a nappy and prepare a bottle with the help of health visitors.”
But Amy soon went off the rails. In 2009, she was given a nine-month community order for growing cannabis at her home and, a year later, she was evicted from her council flat after neighbours complained about her drugfuelled all-night raves.
But since her eviction, Amy seems to have turned her life around, and has ambitions to become a healthcare worker. And she said that, despite the stigma, she tries to be a good mum. She said, “People don’t always believe how much I love my kids because they think I resent having them at the age I did, but the truth is that my kids are my world.”
Tressa Middleton also knows the difficulties of having children young. Tragically, she was just 11 when she was raped by her own brother and fell pregnant. In a bid to protect her baby, she claimed the baby was the result of a drunken fling – until she finally revealed the truth two years later.
Growing up in West Lothian, Scotland, Tressa was brought up in a household rife with drugs and abuse. Her mum, Tracey, was a heroin addict, and Tressa recalls predators begging her for sex in exchange for booze and cigarettes – one man shockingly paid her just £2 for sex. When she was just 11, Tressa’s older brother, Jason, lured her into a derelict building site and raped her.
DENIED CONTACT
Tressa gave birth to a healthy daughter in 2006 and spent two years raising her alone until, aged 14, she finally revealed her dark secret to a friend, and Jason was arrested. But, tragically, Tressa was also denied contact with her child, who was taken into care.
Recalling the last time she saw her daughter, Tressa said in an interview, “I didn’t realise it was the last time I’d see her. The worst part was when she shouted for her mummy – but she meant her adoptive mum, not me.”
The teen mum spiralled into drug addiction to cope with her ordeal until she finally checked herself into rehab in 2011. She has worked hard since then to turn her life around. She’s had counselling and, in October 2018, she and her boyfriend, Darren, welcomed a baby girl, named Arihanna.
But Tressa has never forgotten about her first born. Writing in her book, released in 2005, Tressa penned a letter to her eldest daughter, who she called Annie. She said, “I couldn’t give you the life you deserved. I wanted you to have a better life than I had... so instead, I gave you away to someone who could... You are forever in my heart.”