- Impact of cohort research
- Alcohol consumption
- Aspirations at school
- Cohorts and crime
- Diet at an early age
- Emotional wellbeing
- Escaping childhood poverty
- Family separation
- Impact of smoking on newborns
- Maternal stress in pregnancy
- Rising obesity
- Social disadvantage and health
- Social mobility
- Teenage parents
Who is more likely to become a teenage parent
When compared to older mothers, teenage mothers are three times more likely to suffer from post-natal depression and experience poor mental health in the years after birth and even up until the age of 53.
Cohort studies have shown that teenage parents are also more likely to experience economic disadvantage [1]. However, there is considerable diversity in outcomes. Some mothers are less affected by early childbearing than others. For example, it has much larger negative impact among whites than among other groups and no effect at all on Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.
Cohort evidence has been used by researchers to identify the risk factors for becoming a teenage parent showed risk factors include, having been the daughter of a teenage parent, having emotional problems at the age of seven and a low educational attainment led to a 56 per cent chance of becoming a teenage mother, compared to a three per cent chance for young women where none of these factors applied [2].
References
- Teenage Pregnancy Research Programme research briefing 1: Long-term consequences of teenage births for parents and their children, Department for Children Schools and Families, 2004
- Allen E, Bonell C, Strange V, Copas A, Stephenson J, Johnson AM and Oakley A (2007) 'Does the UK government's teenage pregnancy strategy deal with the correct risk factors? Findings from a secondary analysis of data from a randomised trial of sex education and their implications for policy' Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 61:20-27.
