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Adolescent girls with mental illness more likely to become pregnant
Adolescent girls with mental illness are three times more likely to become parents compared with adolescents without a mental illness, according to recent study findings published in Pediatrics.
“Research tells us that young girls are at high risk of pregnancy complication, including preterm birth, poor fetal growth and postpartum depression,” Simone N. Vigod, MD, MSc, FRCPC, of the department of psychiatry at Women’s College Hospital in Ontario, Canada, said in a press release. “Add to this a pre-existing mental illness, and these young women are forced to manage significant additional challenges.”
Vigod and colleagues evaluated live birth rates from 1999 to 2009 among 4.5 million girls aged 15 to 19 years with and without a mental illness to determine whether mental illness correlated with birth rates among adolescent girls.
Overall, there were 71,908 births among girls in the study, 3.8% were among girls with a major mental illness, defined as diagnosis before pregnancy with a psychotic disorder, bipolar disorder or major depressive disorder.
Of the births to participants with a major mental illness, 71% of infants were born to girls with a primary mood disorder and 29.3% were to girls with a primary psychotic disorder.
There was an age-specific fertility rate of 44.9 per 1,000 among participants with a major mental illness compared with 15.2 per 1,000 among unaffected participants (RR=2.95; 95% CI, 2.84-3.07).
No difference in age-specific fertility rate was found between participants with a primary psychotic disorder or a primary mood disorder.
“Although we do know some of the risk factors behind why girls with mental health illness may be at increased risk of becoming pregnant, pregnancy prevention programs in most developed countries have not traditionally considered mental health issues,” Vigod said.
The researchers said targeted school-based programs along with greater integration of reproductive health care should be implemented into adolescent mental health care programs.
“Interventions that target and integrate reproductive and mental health care for young women are crucial to ensure we are providing the best care possible for adolescent mothers,” Cindy-Lee Dennis, PhD, a senior scientist at Women’s College Research Institute and a Canada Research Chair in perinatal community health, said in the release. “Having these programs and offerings in place will also help reduce teenage pregnancy and improve mother and child health outcomes.”
Disclosure: See the study for a full list of the researchers’ disclosures.
