Obstetric and perinatal outcome of teenage pregnancy

Adolescents are at higher risk during childbirth than women between 20 to 25 years. Adolescent childbearing initiates a syndrome of failure: failure to complete one's education; failure in limiting family size; failure to establish a vocation and become independent. This study was done to find out the obstetric and perinatal outcome of teenage pregnancy along with factors contributing to teenage pregnancy.

A prospective, cross sectional study was carried out in College of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital (CMSTH), Bharatpur during the period for two years from September 2008 to August 2010. Pregnant girls ≤19 years admitted to labour ward were taken for the study. Cases planned for abortion and MTP were also taken.

One hundred cases of pregnant teenagers were admitted in CMSTH during a period of two years. Incidence was 6.85%. In our study, most of the teenagers were unbooked, from low socioeconomic status and with no or inadequate education. They had little knowledge about contraception and less number of teenagers used temporary means of contraception. Because of our social custom of early marriage, most of the teenage mothers were married. All these factors were correlated with teenage pregnancy in present study.

This study failed to show any statistically significant difference in the incidence of anaemia, LBW babies, preterm delivery, hypertensive disorder of pregnancy, mode of delivery in different ages of teenage mothers. However, there was significant difference in the incidence of perinatal death in different ages of teenage mothers indicating that perinatal deaths were more in younger teenagers.