Teenage mothers who suffer from depression are more likely to get pregnant again than their non-depressed counterparts, according to research published today.
“Depression may be an important malleable risk factor” for subsequent pregnancy in teenage girls, Dr. Beth Barnet and colleagues from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore conclude in their report in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
They followed 269 low-income, predominantly black pregnant or parenting adolescents between 12 and 18 years old living in Baltimore, where the teen birth rate is nearly twice the national average.
Questionnaires completed 1 or 2 years after the baby was born revealed that 46 percent of the young mothers had symptoms of depression.
Of 245 teen moms who were followed up through 2 years after childbirth, 120 (49 percent) became pregnant again within 2 years of giving birth and 28 (10 percent) had more than one subsequent pregnancy.
The average time between pregnancies was just 11.4 months, Barnet’s team found.
Depressive symptoms were associated with a 44 percent increase in risk of subsequent pregnancy. Other risk factors for a second pregnancy included dropping out of school, not using condoms consistently, having a relationship with the baby’s father, and older age.
The findings in this study, note Barnet and her colleagues, support a recent national study of 4000 teenagers that linked depression to high-risk sexual behaviors.
A number of strategies have been tried to curb repeat teenage pregnancy, “with unsuccessful or disappointingly modest outcomes,” they also note. The current study findings “support renewed focus” aimed at identifying and treating depressed teen moms as a means of reducing the risk of rapid subsequent pregnancy, the investigators conclude.
They further point out that adolescent mothers are twice as likely as adult mothers to experience depression, with almost twice as many black teen mothers affected compared with white teen mothers.
SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, March 2008.