Adolescent pregnancies: a 10-year single-center experience

Abstract

Objectives: To investigate adolescent pregnacy rate in last decade and emphasize the perinatal outcomes.Methods: Our study was a retrospective investigation of all women with singleton pregnancies who gave birthat > 20 weeks gestation aged 13-16 years old (early aged adolescent pregnancy group, n = 107), aged 17-19years old (late aged adolescent pregnancy group, n = 991) and aged 20-35 years old (control group, n = 1,098)at Ordu University School of Medicine, Training and Research Hospital Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinicbetween January 2008 and January 2018. The variables used to determine the perinatal outcomes were lowbirth weight (birth weight 4,000 g) and stillbirth (delivery ofinfant > 20 weeks gestation without cardiac activity) prevalences were investigated and compared betweengroups.Results: Adolescent birth ratio to all births was 4.4% (1,098/24,560). Low birth weight rate was higher in thelate aged adolescent group (p < 0.001). Cesarean section rate was significantly lower in the adolescent agegroup (40.2% in early aged and 7.2% in late aged)) whereas rate was 56.3% in the control group. We attributedthis to the high parity in the control group and the surplus of the old cesarean section indication (p < 0.001).Conclusions: Adolescent pregnancy, especially late aged adolescents were found to be closely related withlow birth weight but there was no significant difference with respect to stillbirth rate in adult age group. Skilledantenatal, childbirth and postnatal care is very necessary to reduce low birth weight and therefore perinatalmortality.