Teenage pregnancy is a worldwide problem bearing serious social and medical implications relating to maternal and child health. A cross-sectional observational study was undertaken to compare the different sociodemographic characteristics and perinatal outcomes of teenage primigravida mothers with those of adult primigravida mothers in a tertiary-care hospital in eastern India. A sample of 350 each in cases and comparison group comprised the study subjects. Data were collected through interviews and by observations using a pretested and predesigned schedule. Results revealed that the teenage mothers had a higher proportion (27.7%) of preterm deliveries compared to 13.1% in the adult mothers and had low-birthweight babies (38.9% vs 30.4% respectively). Stillbirth rate was also significantly higher in teenage deliveries (5.1% vs 0.9% respectively). The teenage mothers developed more adverse perinatal complications, such as preterm births, stillbirths, neonatal deaths, and delivered low-birthweight babies, when compared with those of the adult primigravida mothers. Teenage pregnancy is still a rampant and important public-health problem in India with unfavourable perinatal outcomes and needs to be tackled on a priority basis.
Key words: Cross-sectional studies; Delivery, Obstetric; Observational studies; Pregnancy outcomes; Pregnancy in adolescence; India
Teenage pregnancy, a social problem distributed worldwide, has serious implications on maternal and child health, especially in the context of developing countries. In India, teenage pregnancy is an important public-health problem, although the national policy of the Government of India advocates the minimum legal age of marriage for girls to be 18 years. Data of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-3 revealed that 16% of women, aged 15-19 years, have already started childbearing. This proportion is the highest in the state of Jharkhand (28%), followed by West Bengal (25%) and Bihar (25%), all located in eastern India. A substantial proportion of young married girls is already malnourished. Nearly 47% of adolescent women have body mass index of less than 18.5, 11.4% are stunted, and half of them have anaemia (1). While there is a growing realization of the need to promote adolescent reproductive health, work done in this field is often inadequate.
Teenage pregnancy occurs when women aged less than 20 years become pregnant. This is of serious concern because maternal age plays a significant role in adverse outcome and complications of pregnancy. Teenage pregnancies represent a high-risk group in reproductive terms because of the double burden of reproduction and growth. Complications of pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of mortality among girls aged 15-19 years in developing countries (2).
The combination of poor nutrition and early child bearing expose young women to serious healthrisks during pregnancy and childbirth, including damage to the reproductive tract, pregnancyrelated complications, such as anaemia, pregnancyinduced hypertension, preterm labour, cephalopelvic disproportion, maternal mortality, perinatal and neonatal mortality, and low birthweight (3,4). Industrialized and developing countries have distinctly different incidences of teenage pregnancy. In developed regions, teenage mothers tend to be unmarried, and adolescent pregnancy is seen as a social issue whereas, in developing countries, such pregnancies mostly occur in married teenagers, and their pregnancy is most often welcomed by family and society. However, in these societies, early pregnancy may combine with malnutrition and poor healthcare to cause medical problems.
Studies on complications in teenage pregnancy have yielded conflicting results, and opinions of different authors vary in this regard. Some have opined that age by itself is not a risk factor, and poor outcomes are associated more with …