Teenage pregnancy in the Rotunda Hospital

The primary aim of this study was to investigate obstetric outcomes in teenagers delivered in the Rotunda Hospital and to identify whether younger teenagers have a poorer obstetric outcome. Delivery record details were recorded from the years 1992-96. These included the number of teenage mothers, maternal age, parity, gestation, mode of delivery, birth weight and Apgar scores. Teenagers were classified into those aged under 17 years and those aged 17 and over. Overall 2,228 teenage mothers were delivered in the Rotunda hospital, representing 17.2% of the total teenage population delivered in Ireland during the study period. Ten percent of mothers were under 17 years; 10.6% were multiparous with 2.6% of these under 17 years. There was a significant difference in the preterm delivery rate when the teenagers were compared as a whole with matched controls aged 20-24 years (p = 0.0411). However this did not translate into a poorer neonatal outcome as on average only 5% of babies were low birth weight and only 3% had Apgar scores < 3. Overall 70.2% of deliveries were spontaneous, 20.2% were instrumental. Less than 10% of deliveries were by caesarean section. However the rate of caesarean section increased with age from 14 (5.7%) to 19 (13.5%) years and this trend was statistically significant (p = 0.013). In conclusion, this study does not support the view that younger teenage mothers have a poorer obstetric and neonatal outcome. It has also been shown that there has been a large increase in the number of multiparous patients in this teenage population.