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. 1987 Mar-Apr;102(2):192–199.

Young maternal age and infant mortality: the role of low birth weight.

A Friede, W Baldwin, P H Rhodes, J W Buehler, L T Strauss, J C Smith, C J Hogue
PMCID: PMC1477817  PMID: 3104976

Abstract

In 1980, there were 562,330 babies born in the United States to teenage mothers (19 years of age or younger). The offspring of teenage mothers have long been known to be at increased risk of infant mortality, largely because of their high prevalence of low birth weight (less than 2,500 grams). We used data from the National Infant Mortality Surveillance (NIMS) project to examine the effect of young maternal age and low birth weight on infant mortality among infants born in 1980 to U.S. residents. This analysis was restricted to single-delivery babies who were either black or white, who were born to mothers ages 10-29 years, and who were born in one of 48 States or the District of Columbia. Included were 2,527,813 births and 28,499 deaths (data from Maine and Texas were excluded for technical reasons). Direct standardization was used to calculate the relative risks, adjusted for birth weight, of neonatal mortality (less than 28 days of life) and postneonatal mortality (28 days to less than 1 year of life) by race and maternal age. There was a strong association between young maternal age and high infant mortality and between young maternal age and a high prevalence of low birth weight. Neonatal mortality declined steadily with increasing maternal age. After adjusting for birth weight, the race-specific relative risks for babies born to mothers less than 16 years of age were still elevated from 11 to 40 percent, compared with babies born to mothers 25-29 years of age.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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