Medical Problems Specific to Teen Pregnancies, Part 1

I went to school in an area where teen pregnancy is fairly common. Several people I knew-my sister included-had their first child when they were 17 or younger. Judging from the things they said, being pregnant as a teenager is difficult enough without having to add complications to the equation. Any pregnancy can have complications, but are there any that are specific to teenage pregnancies? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. It's not so much that these things only happen to teens so much as that they are more likely to happen to teens; as much as we wanted to believe otherwise at that age, teens are not yet fully grown and are thus more at risk for certain problems than they would be if they were older. So, what are some of these problems? Here is a very basic overview. When I say “complications”, I'm only talking about the medical ones; I'll go over the social and emotional ones in another post.

One problem comes from the lack of prenatal care. Think about it; how many girls did you know in school had a pregnancy scare? I didn't, but some of my friends did. The first thing they'll probably say is that they're afraid of what their parents will think. If they're afraid to tell their parents they're in a position to need prenatal care or don't have parental support during the pregnancy, they're not likely to get it. Prenatal care is important all through the pregnancy, but especially in the first few weeks. If they don't get prenatal care, they won't know the right foods to eat, right vitamins to take or any of the other things mothers are told to do to ensure a healthy baby. They also won't know if there are any medical issues that could adversely affect their or the baby's health, which can cause other problems. In fact, the death rate from pregnancy complications is a lot higher in younger teenagers than it is in older, part of that being from problems that could have been addressed and dealt with early had prenatal care been given. Difficult as it is for a teenager to tell her parents she's pregnant, this is essential to getting her the care she needs. Most parents I know would rather have their child tell them she's pregnant than to risk harm to herself and/or her baby.

A teenager's body may literally be too small to carry a baby. We often see skinny people and joke about how it's a wonder they can “fit a baby in there”, but this can actually happen. Pelvic bones don't reach their “adult” size until age 18, which makes her more likely to need a c-section because she does not yet have the capacity for a vaginal birth. Smaller size also makes premature birth more likely because the baby has simply gotten too big for her body. This sounds weird, but it happened with my sister and another girl I knew.

(Continued in Part 2)