29-year-old becomes grandmother in Argentina

A 29-year-old woman in Argentina became a grandmother after her 14-year-old son became a father, local media reported Thursday.

Lucia Desiree Pastenez, a resident of San Rafael, a city in Argentina's Mendoza state, described her young son as an upstanding father, said La Nacion daily.

"He continues to go to secondary school ... and he takes care of his son, as he has family values," Pastenez was quoted as saying.

"There are older fathers that don't take responsibility and abandon their babies."

The mother of four said she doesn't interfere in her son's relationship with the mother of his child.

"I didn't force them to get married or to stay together. The mother of my grandchild lives at home with her family and he lives with me."

"We won't stop supporting him, because we know how hard it is to go through this experience in adolescence," said Pastenez, who said she had advised her son not to become a teenage father.

Latin America and the Caribbean has the world's third-highest rate of teenage pregnancy, at 72 per 1,000 births, after sub-Saharan Africa (108) and South Asia (73). Endi