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An audit to determine the incidence of births to teenage nullipara, pregnancy complications, obstetric intervention rates, maternal and fetal outcomes in 114 teenage nullipara compared with 700 randomly selected older nullipara (age 20-29 years), was undertaken in a tertiary Institution. Births to teenage nullipara contributed 1.7% of all deliveries. Teenagers were significantly more likely to be unbooked for antenatal care (P < 0.0001), book late (P < 0.0001) and be single mothers (P < 0.0001). Teenagers were also significantly more likely to have primary education (P < 0.0001), secondary education (P < 0.001) or be apprentices (P < 0.0001). Teenagers had a significantly higher incidence of caesarean sections (P = 0.0002). There were no significant differences in the incidence of pregnancy complications, induction or augmentation of labour, preterm delivery, instrumental deliveries and fetal outcome. The maternal mortality ratio for teenagers was 1835 per 100,000 live births. There were no deaths among the older nullipara. It is concluded that the differences in obstetric intervention rates and maternal outcome are due to poor utilization of antenatal care and other social disparity.
Ebeigbe et al. (Sun,) studied this question.