[Relationship between the nutritional status of pregnant adolescents and fetal growth]

In order to identify differences in growth and nutritional status between early (up to 17 years old) and late (17 to 19 years old) adolescent mothers during pregnancy and to measure the risk to have an intrauterine growth retardation (IGR: birthweight < 10 degrees percentile), a retrospective longitudinal anthropometric study was carried out in 300 adolescent pregnancies. Nutritional status was estimated according to the body mass index (height/weight2)--measured during the first (< 20 weeks) and last (> 33 weeks) prenatal control--and by the weight gain during pregnancy. When a mother had a weight gain < 25 degrees percentile she was considered at risk to have an IGR. Neonatal anthropometry included birthweight, recumbent length, cephalic perimeter and body mass index. Comparison between both groups of mothers was performed by one way ANOVA and Mantel-Haenszel stratified procedure. Odds-ratio was also calculated. Results showed no statistically significant differences in growth between both early and late adolescent pregnancies and between both groups of newborns. When a mother had a weight gain < 25 degrees percentile the relative risk to have an IGR increase up to three times (O.R = 2.71 I.C. 95%: 1.31/6.45). There were highly significant differences in growth between newborns from mothers at risk and from mothers not at risk (p < 0.01). The study showed that the risk to have an IGR is significantly related to nutritional status and not to age itself in adolescent pregnancies.