Abortion

A high proportion of girls who become pregnant while teenagers seek terminations. The proportion gets larger the younger the age group. Thus of 16 and 17 year olds more than a third opt for abortion. Of the under 16s half have an abortion. Among children conceiving even younger the proportion is even higher.1

Sole parenthood

Ninety per cent of teenage mothers have their babies outside marriage, and relationships started in the teenage years have at least a 50 per cent chance of breaking down. 1

Social deprivation

Women who were teenage parents are more likely than their peers to:1

• have no qualifications
• be living on benefits and have substantially lower incomes
• if working, to be in semi-skilled or unskilled manual occupations
• not to be home owners
• to have divorced or separated
• to have large families (20% had four or more children by the age of 33)

In turn, their children are more likely to:1

• have to grow up in a lone parent family
• experience the separation of their parents
• be living in poverty, in poor housing and with bad nutrition.
• become teenage mothers themselves

Health problems

Teenage mothers and their babies commonly experience significant health problems:1

• Teenage mothers are 25% more likely than average to have an underweight baby.
• The infant mortality rate for babies of teenage mothers in the first year of their lives is 60% higher than for babies of older mothers.
• Mortality rates in the 1-3 age group are highest for mothers under 20.
• Post-natal depression is three times as common amongst teenage mothers, with four out of ten affected.
• Teenage mothers are only half as likely as older mothers to breastfeed.
• Children of teenage mothers are more likely to suffer accidents - especially poisoning or burns - and twice as likely to be admitted to hospital as the result of an accident or gastro-enteritis.