Pregnancy in Swedish Teenagers: Perinatal Problems and Social Situation

Abstract

Teenage pregnancies are considered a major problem, socially and medically, in the USA. In the present study, the scope of the problem in a Swedish population was investigated. Primiparas aged 17 or less constituted 2% of all 8945 women delivered of babies at the University Hospital in Linköping, 1969–72. The most common obstetrical complications and operations did not occur more often in this age group. The incidence of deliveries before the 36th gestational week was increased 3-fold but no significant differences in intra-uterine growth retardation, asphyxia or perinatal mortality were found. One to two years after the delivery, 70% of the young mothers lived in ordinary nuclear families. Their economic position was worse than in a control group of women 21–29 years old. Barely 10% reached the median income of the control group. This disadvantageous situation was not thought to be caused by their early pregnancies, but rather considered part of the life pattern of an underprivileged group otherwise characterized by a low occupational status of their own fathers, a low educational level and a high frequency of teenage pregnancy among their own mothers.