33-year-old woman becomes Grandmother after Daughter, 17 gives Birth

A mother-of-three is believed to have become Britain’s youngest grandma at 33 after her 17-year-old daughter gave birth last week.

Gemma Skinner, whose daughter Maizie gave birth to a little girl, said she was mistaken for the baby’s aunt by nurses in the hospital.

The mother-of-three from Amersham, Buckinghamshire, told The Sun: ‘At first I didn’t want to be called ‘nan’ or ‘granny’ – but now I’m loving it.’

Ms Skinner said that she is having a great time taking her new granddaughter out and about, with everyone thinking that she is the girl’s mother.

She has three daughters of her own with her youngest, four-year-old Bella, also becoming an auntie with the birth of the new baby.

‘I did the school run with the baby this week and someone came over to me and asked if she was mine,’ she told the newspaper.

‘I had to explain that she’s my granddaughter and they were quite shocked. Everyone has assumed she is Maizie’s younger sister so we have to keep explaining that she’s actually her daughter.

‘People mistake me for her mum all the time,’ she added.

Ms Skinner had her oldest daughter Maizie in 2004 when she was 16 years old. She has another daughter Gracie, who’s ten, as well her youngest Gracie.

She said that when she found Maizie was pregnant at 17, she was initially worried, remembering her own experience of being a teenage mother.

Now, she says she wouldn’t change anything for the world, and that Maizie has taken to being a mother with ease. With her boyfriend, 19-year-old Jack Weir, Maizie has named her new baby Larosa Maè.

The teenager went into labour last Saturday night but had to suffer through a traumatic birth.

Ms Skinner explained that Maizie had to be induced, and had an epidural that didn’t work down one side of her body. After that, the baby’s head was born for three minutes before the rest of the baby’s body.

But the ordeal had a happy ending, with the little one being born weighing 8lb 4oz at 1.20 am on Sunday.

In an interview, Maizie admitted to The Sun that she was scared to tell her mother that she was pregnant while she was so young, but the news was met with amazing support from her mother.

She recalled: ‘She just hugged me and told me it would be OK and supported me from then.’

In the UK, the average age of becoming a grandparent is 63, with the average age for becoming a first-time mother being 29.