12-Year-Old Gives Birth During School Trip

A 12-year-old Dutch schoolgirl, who was unaware of her pregnancy, gave birth to a baby girl during a school trip last week.

"Neither the girl nor her family had realised she was pregnant, and there were no external signs to show it," a spokesman for the health services said, adding he did not know how many months pregnant the girl had been. The girl, from Groningen in the north of the Netherlands, was on a day out on Tuesday last week with her classmates where she began to feel violent stomach pains, the spokesman said. A supervisor thought the pains suspicious and alerted the emergency services. When ambulance staff arrived they saw the girl was on the point of giving birth and rushed her to a nearby building where she had her baby. Both "are doing well" in the maternity ward of a Groningen hospital, the spokesman said. A social worker has been charged with looking after the welfare of the baby, he said, adding that this was standard practice in the Netherlands in such cases.
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According to additional reports, the girl, who was 11 when she got pregnant, was removed from her home and placed in foster care. She refuses to name the father. Social services say the girl "may be in an unsafe environment" at home. They have reason for concern: Her father was previously convicted of abusing an older sister.