[Teenage pregnancy as a public problem: a critical view].

The present work is a review of the most commonly used arguments to define pregnancy during adolescence as a public problem: its supposed increase, contribution to accelerated population growth, adverse effects on maternal and child health and contribution to the persistence of poverty. Some elements are proposed for an alternative explanation with the intention of defining with more rigour and pertinence the real problems related to pregnancy during adolescence, thus allowing an improvement in the design of policies and programs to confront it.