Outcome of adolescent pregnancies in southwestern Nigeria: a case-control study

The most important health problems among adolescents in the developing countries are increased incidence of preterm labour and delivery, hypertensive disease, anaemia, more severe forms of malaria, obstructed labour, poor maternal nutrition and poor breastfeeding, low birth weight and increased neonatal mortality and morbidity.

To evaluate the risk factors of adolescent pregnancy, assess and explore the occurrence of specific complications and compare pregnancy complications among adolescent parturients to older controls in a tertiary health centre in order to design appropriate policies and interventions.

A retrospective study was conducted in a population of adolescents (age <18 years) delivered at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria from January 2007 to November 2008. The birth register for the study-period was reviewed and socio-demographic data and labour records were extracted for both cases and controls.

The proportion of adolescent pregnancy between January 2007 and November, 2008 is between 1.5% and 2.2%. Overall, considering all the complications considered in the study 44.44% of adolescent pregnancies had one form of complication or the other. The corresponding figure among the control was 22.22%. The p-value = 0.002 showing that adolescents had statistically more significant complication rates in pregnancy. Concerning the individual complications, the incidence of eclampsia and pre-eclampsia among adolescent was 20% which was only 3.33% among the controls. The p-value when this was compared was 0.001 showing statistical significance.

Psychological, nutritional and social work services should be an integral part of obstetrical care in adolescent pregnancy especially in low resource country like Nigeria.