Structural factors associated with birth complications in adolescent fertility

The purpose of this study is to examine a set of demographic, economic, familial and health-related factors for their possible significance in differentiating birth complications among a sample of adolescents and their babies in London, Ontario in 1984-86 (N = 260). Variables such as age, marital status, religion, family social class, economic situation, family composition and interaction, prenatal care and smoking behaviour were related to pregnancy and birth complication outcome. For the adolescent mothers, only certain aspects of family social class differentiated those experiencing complications. Several familial factors were associated with the occurrence of infant complications based on the bivariate analyses, but only the work status of the teenager continued to display a significant relationship with infant complications when other factors were controlled through multivariate techniques. In a circumstance in which young pregnant women receive a high degree of personal and medical attention, there appears to be little in the way of structural variables to distinguish complicated birth outcome for either the adolescent mother or her child.