Abdulla Salim Bin Ghouth, Ahlam Saleh Bin Break, Adnan Ali Melkat, Amer Salmeen Belafair, Profile of Teenage Pregnancy in Hadramout, Yemen, Journal of Women's Reproductive Health, Volume 1, Issue 4, 2017, Pages 1-8, ISSN 2381-862X, https://doi.org/10.14302/issn.2381-862X.jwrh-16-1292.
(https://www.ijn-medicalarticles.info/womens-reproductive-health/article/profile-of-teenage-pregnancy-in-hadramout-yemen-413)
Abstract: Objective: A cross-sectional study was designed to collect socio-demographic and obstetric data about female teenagers who have a pregnancy and are visiting primary health care centers for antenatal care. Subjects and methods: Data were collected by a trained 60 medical students of the 6th level in Hadramout University during their post in primary health care centers from 20 May – 10 June 2008. A convenience sample of 237 teenagers who were attending the 12 PHC centers for antenatal care checking constituted the study subjects. Results: Fifty-one out of 237 (21.5%) pregnant women were of age 17 years or less. Most of them were from rural areas with a statistically significant difference in both age groups (p-value <0.002); they were housewives (232/237 97.8%) and their husbands mostly had non-professional jobs with a significant difference between both age groups (p-value <0.005). A high prevalence of anemia in teenage pregnant women was reported (76.7% of them had an Hb level less than 11 g/dl) but there was no significant difference between mean Hb level in those at the age of 17 years or less (9.9 SD=1) and those at age >17-<20 years (10.1 SD=1.18) p-value >0.05. About one-third of pregnant teenagers were second or multigravida (81/237 pregnant women 34.2%) but only 66 of them were delivered before. The majority of second/multigravida were delivered normally (57/66 pregnant women 86.4%) while only 31 of them (47%) gets their births in a health facility where LSCS was done for 9 pregnant women. The outcome of the pregnancy in teenage multigravida is 67 children; three of them were stillbirths and another 6 babies died within the first week of their life indicating the total children died during the perinatal period as 9 children; so the perinatal mortality rate was very high in teenagers (9/67*1000 = 134/1000 births). Conclusions: Teenage pregnancy is common and accepted in Hadramout in Yemen; the main consequences are a high prevalence of anemia and high perinatal mortality rate.
Keywords: Teenage Pregnancy; Yemen; Antenatal Care; Anemia; Primary Health Care