Teenage pregnancy in the Rotunda Hospital

The primary aim of this study was to investigate obstetric outcomes in teen agers delivered in the Rotunda Hospital and to identify whether younger tee nagers have a poorer obstetric outcome. Delivery record details were recorded from the years 1992-96, These include d the number of teenage mothers,maternal age, parity, gestation, mode of de livery, birth weight and Apgar scores. Teenagers were classified into those aged under 17 Sears and those aged 17 and over. Overall 2,228 teenage mothers were delivered in the Rotunda hospital, repre senting 17.2% of the total teenage population delivered in Ireland during t he study period,Ten percent of mothers were under 17 years; 10.6% were mult iparous with 2.6% of these under 17 years. There was a significant differen ce in the preterm delivery rate when the teenagers were compared as a whole with matched controls aged 20-24 years (p=0.0411). However this did not tr anslate into a poorer neonatal outcome as on average only 5% of babies were low birth weight and only 3% had Apgar scores <3. Overall 70.2% of deliver ies were spontaneous, 20.2% were instrumental. Less than 10% of deliveries were by caesarean section. However the rate of caesarean section increased with age from 14 (5.7%) to 19 (13.5%) years and this trend was statisticall y significant (p=0.013), In conclusion, this study does not support the view that younger teenage mo thers have a poorer obstetric and neonatal outcome. It has also been shown that there has been a large increase in the number of multiparous patients in this teenage population.