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When this man’s daughter told him she was pregnant, they clung together and wept. Now he tells of his fear that his little girl – who has never even played with dolls – is ill-equipped to cope with a baby of her own. Little more than a child herself, this 12-year-old Australian girl is quickly learning the stark realities of motherhood.

The pre-teen has become one of the youngest mothers in the nation after giving birth last month to a baby boy in her home town in regional New South Wales.

While other girls her age are counting down to the school holidays, she has just begun a daunting education in how to care for, bathe and breastfeed her newborn baby.

Her concerned father says these tasks won’t come easy for a girl who is desperately ill-equipped to deal with the demands of raising a child. “She is only a baby herself and now she’s got a baby,” he tells Woman’s Day in an exclusive interview.

“She hasn’t got any maternal instincts at all. She never even played with dolls when she was younger. She never played at being a mummy. This breaks my heart.”

Along with the emotional demands of having a baby at such a young age, her father is also worried about the physical impact the birth has had on his daughter – and reveals she had an emergency caesarean.

“It was early,” he says. “They had to perform an emergency caesarean because she had high blood pressure. She was petrified but came through OK.”

He admits his daughter, who can’t be identified for legal reasons, has received a mass of support – along with baby clothes and toys – from family and friends, but fears that will count for little when the full enormity of what lies ahead finally hits home.

Her profile picture on social networking site Facebook displayed an exuberant young girl with laughing eyes, but her father says the cheeky smile has begun to fade after three weeks as she struggles with the demands of being a mother.