Teenage pregnancy and parenthood: outcomes for mother and child.

This study reports some general health and related outcomes for all women ages 14, 15, and 16 and their children delivered at our hospital in 1976. These outcomes are contrasted with 100 women ages 20-30 years and their children born the same year. Data were collected by retrospective chart review. For the teenage group, 70% were unmarried, most of the fathers were 4-5 years older than the teenaged mother, most teen mothers were living with their parents, and all had incomes in the poverty range. A comparison of black and white teenaged mothers showed that: (1) 14-15-year-old blacks had proportionally more pregnancies than whites, (2) the first prenatal visit was later for blacks, and (3) children of the white teenagers had more acute illness visits during the 2-yr follow up. When the age of the teenage mother is considered, the 1-min Apgar scores for the children of 14-year olds were lower and the school drop out rate was higher with increasing maternal age. In comparing the teen to the 20-30-year-old group, the only finding was higher complication rate for pregnancy and delivery for the teen group. The physical growth of all children was normal. These results must be interpreted with caution, because of missing data for some variables; however, this data should be of some use in planning future research and intervention programs.