Teenage marital pregnancy and its risk factors Teenage marital pregnancy and its risk factors

Abstract

Background: Teenage pregnancy is a major health concern both in Bangladesh and developed countries. The important risk factors identified for teenage pregnancy in South Asian countries including Bangladesh are teenage marriage, low socio-economic status, low educational attainment, disrupted family structure and birth intention. Objective: To find out the proportion of teenage marital pregnancy and its risk factors in rural community of Bangladesh. Methods: It was cross sectional descriptive type of study conducted among the married women aged <30 years in a rural community Bangladesh. A total of 419 women were included in this study. Data were collected by 4th year medical students of Barind Medical College with the help of a pretested semi structured interview schedule by face to face interview. Chi-square test was used to find out the association between variables and teenage pregnancy. Multiple logistic regression analysis was also applied to identify the important risk factors of teenage pregnancy. Results: A total of 419 women, 215 (51.3%) women experienced teenage marital pregnancy. The mean age of first pregnancy was 18.6 (SD = 2.4) years. More than 53.0% of the women were married before completion of 18 years and their mean age of first marriage was 16.4 years. Marriage before 18 years (OR 24.21, 95% CI 13.48 to 45.57), Low education (OR 2.97, 95% CI 1.23 to 7.14) and unplanned child birth (OR 5.86, 95% CI 2.75 to 12.50) of the women were identified as risk factors of teenage age pregnancy in the rural area. Conclusion: The ordinance of legal age at marriage (18 years) should be properly implemented in Bangladesh specially in rural areas. Policy and special programmatic measures should be undertaken to remain girls in school for a longer duration to prevent dropouts giving emphasis on the education for treating the effect social and cultural norms favoring girls to get marry earlier and to have early childbirth. User friendly reproductive health services as well as accurate information on reproductive health should be availed to the young women to avoid unwanted and mistimed births.