5-year study links teenage pregnancy to C-section, anaemia

Afive-year long study of teenage pregnancy in Katsina linked it to high incidence of caesarean sections, anaemia and preterm. The state has historically topped the league of states with the highest number of teenage pregnancies, according to previous National Demographic Health Surveys.

Researchers found 723 out of 10,391 deliveries were to teenage girls—accounting for nearly 70 in every 1,000 births in a single hospital.

The girls were aged 18 on average. A total 599 of them were married but less than half of all the girls had a secondary school education.

Only 60 in every 100 of them every booked for antenatal services at a health facility. One-third of them booked when they were already in their third trimester.

For every 100 births, 14 were through caesarean section. Seven in 10 girls had caesarean section due to eclampsia, a condition in which one or more convulsions occur in a pregnant woman suffering from high blood pressure, often followed by coma and posing a threat to the health of mother and baby.

Another 13% of the girls who gave birth underwent caesarean section because the baby’s head or body was too large to fit through the mother’s pelvis. This condition often cause obstetric fistula when unnoticed.

Nearly 34 in 100 of the girls had anaemia; 10 in 100 of them gave birth premature. The researchers said anaemia and preterm delivery were the leading cause of maternal and foetal morbidities. Three of the girls died.

In their paper published in the Tropical Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, the five researchers from the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at Federal Medical Centre Katsina conclude teenage pregnancy is high and “associated with late booking and increased incidence of caesarean section.”