Teen Pregnancy Linked to Future Premature Mortality

FRIDAY, March 15, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Teen pregnancy is associated with future premature mortality, according to a study published online March 14 in JAMA Network Open.

Joel G. Ray, M.D., from the University of Toronto, and colleagues examined the risk of premature mortality from age 12 onward in association with teen pregnancies in a population-based cohort study involving all females alive at age 12 from April 1, 1991, to March 31, 2021, in Ontario, Canada.

Overall, 7.3 percent of the 2,242,929 teenagers experienced a pregnancy at a median age of 18 years. The researchers found that 36.8 percent of those with a teen pregnancy ended in a birth (99.1 percent live births) and 65.1 percent ended in induced abortion. The median age at the end of follow-up was 25 and 31 years for those without and with a teen pregnancy, respectively. Among those without, with one, and with two or more teen pregnancies, there were 6,030; 701; and 345 deaths, respectively (1.9, 4.1, and 6.1 per 10,000 person-years), with adjusted hazard ratios of 1.51 and 2.14 for those with one and two or more pregnancies, respectively. The adjusted hazard ratio for premature death was 1.25, 2.06, and 2.02 from noninjury, from unintentional injury, and from intentional injury, respectively, comparing those with versus without a teen pregnancy.

“This cohort study suggests that teen pregnancy may be a readily identifiable marker for subsequent risk of premature mortality in early adulthood,” the authors write.

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