Birth weights among infants born to adolescent and young adult women

Relationship between maternal nutritional status and infant’s weight and body proportions at birth

“…However, age did not make an independent contribution to birth weight after taking account mother's weight, height, parity, child's gender and gestational age. Similar ®ndings have been seen in previous studies where there were no signi®cant differences in birth weight between adolescent and young adult women (Horon et al, 1983).…”

Pregnancy in Adolescence: Is It Really a Concern?

“…Gestational age was the most important variable in predicting birth weight. (25) If early marriages cannot be discouraged, as the situation still prevails in rural areas of India, three steps can be taken for prevention of complications of adolescent pregnancy through enhanced Family Welfare measures:…”

Perinatal Outcome: Is Young Maternal Age a Risk Factor?

“…Multiple and logistic regression analysis demonstrated that several health and social factors (poor weight gain during pregnancy, low prepregnancy weight, being black, delivering male infants, marijuana smoking), but not adolescent status, were independently associated with the measures of adverse outcome. Comparing primigravid patients under the age of 16 and socially comparable primigravid patients 20 to 24 years old, Horon et al 12 found no significant difference in birth weights between the two groups. They concluded that the reported maternal age differences in regard to birth weight are due to an overrepresentation of risk factors associated with low birth weight among young women.…”

“…Many studies were uncontrolled. [4][5][6] Various comparison groups have been used, including adolescents cared for in a different locality, 7 older adolescent mothers 15 to 19 years old, 8 a subset of older pregnant women, [9][10][11][12][13][14] or all older pregnant women. 15 Comparison with a group with lowest risk is likely to show an increased risk to the adolescent.…”