New study of maternal longevity after teenage pregnancy
We know from past research that girls are more likely to drop out of school and face financial hardship when they become pregnant early. Young mothers and their babies are also more likely to have serious medical complications. Now a major study in Canada has found that teenagers who get pregnant have a higher risk of not living to their 31st birthday.
As part of the analysis, which was published by the journal JAMA Network Open, Canadian health professionals looked at data from the health insurance registry of their country's most populous province, Ontario. The sample included information on more than 2.2 million girls who were 12 years old between April 1991 and the end of March 2021. The median age in the group with no teenage pregnancies at the end of follow-up was 25 years, while the median age among participants with a history of teenage pregnancy was 31 years.
After examining statistics on teenage pregnancies and their outcomes, the researchers compared this information with data on all-cause mortality at young ages, starting at age 12. Using statistical analysis techniques and a Cox regression model, the researchers found that the younger a woman was at the time of pregnancy, the higher her risk of premature death. The trend was seen both in teenage girls who carried the baby to term and in those who experienced ectopic pregnancies and lost the fetus through miscarriage or stillbirth.
Even after accounting for health problems, differences in income and education, the analysis showed that those who became pregnant early and had a baby were more than twice as likely to die young compared to girls without such experience.
In the case of pregnancy termination in adolescence, the risk of premature death later in life was slightly lower, but still the probability of dying young in this case was 40% higher than in girls without early pregnancy.
It was also found that those who had been pregnant before the age of 16 and those who had repeated such experiences were more likely to die prematurely. Most of the early deaths were caused by injuries - both intentional self-inflicted and unintentional, such as those resulting from assault and physical violence.
In a commentary on the paper, public health specialist Elizabeth L. Cook of Child Trends, a research organization focused on children and youth, said the link between teen pregnancy and premature death is probably not causal. Rather, it is an indirect manifestation of a number of other negative factors, including adverse childhood events.
Previously, a Finnish study published in 2017 revealed that women with a history of teenage pregnancy were more likely to die prematurely as a result of suicide, alcoholism, circulatory disease, and automobile accidents. At the time, the authors attributed the increased risk of early death in these women to their low levels of education.
According to the World Health Organization, pregnancy, its termination and delivery in adolescence is one of the leading causes of maternal and child mortality in the world. The probability of stillbirth and neonatal death in teenage mothers is one and a half times higher than in women 20-29 years old.