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The obstetric performance of 121 young teenagers (less than 17 years of age) confining as public patients at Blacktown District Hospital was retrospectively compared with a randomly-selected control group of older gravidas. These adolescents were less likely to be married, to be certain of their last menstrual period, to book into the hospital early or to attend the antenatal clinic regularly than their older counterparts. However, there was no difference in the rates of anaemia, spontaneous or operative delivery, gestational age at confinement, birth-weight, perinatal mortality or neonatal morbidity rates. When the teenagers were compared with primigravidas from the control group, labour length was significantly shorter and the rates of preeclampsia were similar. These results are more optimistic than previous overseas reports regarding the obstetric performance of young adolescents.
Bradford et al. (Wed,) studied this question.