Teenage deliveries in a Swedish population in the 1970's.

Abstract

The investigated material consists of all teenage deliveries in the city of Malmö, Sweden, during the 1970's. For the years of 1972 and 1976, before and after the new abortion act in Sweden, a more detailed study of the pregnancy and delivery has been performed. The study shows that the frequency of adolescent deliveries decreases by about 30% during the 1970's. However, the teenage proportion of the total number of pregnancies remains still unchanged. The investigation also confirms that there is an increased incidence of preterm delivery and low birth weight babies in teenagers, but in other respects there is no increased risk to mother or child in teenage pregnancy. 82% of the teenage mothers were primigravidae and during the first year after delivery, 10.5% of the teenagers fell pregnant again. This is higher than that in a contemporary abortion material, where the corresponding figure is 6.5%.