Peer-reviewed article
Characteristics and adverse outcomes of Chinese adolescent pregnancies between 2012 and 2019.
Yanxia Xie, Xiaodong Wang, Yi Mu, Zheng Liu, Yanping Wang et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined 2.4 million pregnancies in Chinese women aged 10-24 years between 2012 and 2019 to understand the health risks of adolescent pregnancy. Adolescent mothers (under 20 years) had significantly higher risks of serious complications including eclampsia, severe anaemia, and maternal near miss compared to women aged 20-24 years. The research found that adolescent pregnancies were associated with higher rates of small-for-gestational-age babies and other poor birth outcomes. The study highlights that adolescent pregnancy rates have been rebounding in rural China, despite declining common-law marriages.
Key points
- Adolescent mothers (<20 years) had 1.87 times higher risk of eclampsia compared to women aged 20-24 years
- Adolescent pregnancy was associated with 1.24 times higher risk of maternal near miss and 1.30 times higher risk of small for gestational age infants
- The proportion of rural girls with adolescent pregnancies rebounded after 2015
- Adolescent pregnancy was independently associated with increased risks of multiple other perinatal outcomes
- The study analysed data from 438 hospitals covering 2,366,559 pregnancies over 8 years
Limitations
This is an observational study of hospital records and cannot establish causation or identify all reasons why adolescent pregnancies have worse outcomes. The study does not provide information about the social, economic or educational circumstances of adolescent mothers or potential interventions to address adolescent pregnancy.
Abstract
We aimed to describe the characteristics of adolescent pregnancy, determine its effect on adverse maternal and perinatal outcomes and explore whether that association varies with gestational age with the goal of proposing specific recommendations for adolescent health in China. This study included 2,366,559 women aged 10-24 years who had singleton pregnancies between 2012 and 2019 at 438 hospitals. Adolescent pregnancy was defined as younger than 20 years of age. We used multivariable logistic regression to estimate the effects. Women aged 20-24 years served as the reference group in all analyses. The proportion of rural girls with adolescent pregnancies rebounded after 2015 even though common-law marriage in rural areas decreased. Higher risks of eclampsia (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 1.87, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.57 ~ 2.23), severe anaemia (aOR 1.18, 95% CI 1.09 ~ 1.28), maternal near miss (MNM; aOR 1.24, 95% CI 1.12 ~ 1.37), and small for gestational age (SGA; aOR 1.30, 95% CI 1.28 ~ 1.33) were observed when gestational age was > 37 weeks. Adolescent pregnancy was independently associated with increased risks of other perinatal outcomes. Further implementation of pregnancy prevention strategies and improved health care interventions are needed to reduce adolescent pregnancies and prevent adverse fertility outcomes among adolescent women in China at a time when adolescent fertility rate is rebounding.