Abstract
The number of adolescent pregnancies in the United States has continued to decline; however, there remains significant concern that racial as well as social disparities contribute to a disproportionate risk for certain vulnerable populations. Many of these same social and demographic factors negatively impact the risk for mental health disorders. Certain mental health disorders, particularly those that more commonly present with impulsive or risky behaviors as part of their symptom complex, pose a higher risk of resulting in an unplanned pregnancy during adolescence. Although there is mixed evidence that adolescent pregnancy alone is causative of mental health disorders for the adolescent parent, there is robust evidence that links adolescent pregnancy to an increased risk of mental, physical, and developmental health concerns for the resulting child. Additionally, there are a myriad of long-term biopsychosocial consequences that can extend into both the adolescent mother and child’s life far beyond the perinatal period.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Martin JA, Hamilton BE, Osterman MJK, Driscoll AK, Drake P. Births: final data for 2017. Natl Vital Stat Rep. 2018;67(8):1–50.
Assini-Meytin LC, Green KM. Long-term consequences of adolescent parenthood among African-American urban youth: a propensity score matching approach. J Adolesc Health. 2015;56(5):529–35.
Hillis SD, Anda RF, Dube SR, Felitti VJ, Marchbanks PA, Marks JS. The association between adverse childhood experiences and adolescent pregnancy, long-term psychosocial consequences, and fetal death. Pediatrics. 2004;113(2):320–7.
Hodgkinson S, Beers L, Southammakosane C, Lewin A. Addressing the mental health needs of pregnant and parenting adolescents. Pediatrics. 2014;133(1):114–22.
Corcoran J. Teenage pregnancy and mental health. Societies. 2016;6(3):21.
Lang DL, Rieckman T, DiClemente RJ, Crosby RA, Brown LK, Donenberg GR. Multi-level factors associated with pregnancy among urban adolescent women seeking psychological services. J Urban Health. 2013;90(2):212–23.
Ickovics JR, Niccolai LM, Lewis JB, Kershaw TS, Ethier KA. High postpartum rates of sexually transmitted infections among teens: pregnancy as a window of opportunity for prevention. Sex Transm Infect. 2003;79(6):469–73.
Kovacs M, Krol RS, Voti L. Early onset psychopathology and the risk for teenage pregnancy among clinically referred girls. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 1994;33(1):106–13.
Barnet B, Liu J, DeVoe M. Double jeopardy: depressive symptoms and rapid subsequent pregnancy in adolescent mothers. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2008;162(3):246–52.
Connery HS, Albright BB, Rodolico JM. Adolescent substance use and unplanned pregnancy: strategies for risk reduction. Obstet Gynecol Clin. 2014;41(2):191–203.
Nunes AP, Phipps MG. Postpartum depression in adolescent and adult mothers: comparing prenatal risk factors and predictive models. Matern Child Health J. 2013;17(6):1071–9.
Althabe F, Moore JL, Gibbons L, Berrueta M, Goudar SS, Chomba D, Patel A, Saleem S, Pasha O, Esamai F, Garces A, Liechty EA, Hambidge KM, Krebs NF, Hibberd PL, Goldenberg RL, Koso-Thomas M, Carlo WA, Cafferata ML, Beukens P, McClure EM. Adverse maternal and perinatal outcomes in adolescent pregnancies: the global network’s maternal newborn health registry study. Reprod Health. 2015;12(S2):S8.
Chandra-Mouli V, et al. The political, research, programmatic, and social responses to adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights in the 25 years since the International Conference on Population and Development. J Adolesc Health. 2019;65(6):S16–40.
Xavier C, Benoit A, Brown HK. Teenage pregnancy and mental health beyond the postpartum period: a systematic review. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2018;72(6):451–7.
Meltzer-Brody S, Bledsoe-Mansori SE, Johnson N, Killian C, Hamer RM, Jackson C, et al. A prospective study of perinatal depression and trauma history in pregnant minority adolescents. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2013;208(3):211–e1.
Whitworth TR. Teen childbearing and depression: do pregnancy attitudes matter? J Marriage Fam. 2017;79(2):390–404.
Pasalich DS, Cyr M, Zheng Y, McMahon RJ, Spieker SJ. Child abuse history in teen mothers and parent–child risk processes for offspring externalizing problems. Child Abuse Negl. 2016;56:89–98.
Merikangas AK, Calkins ME, Bilker WB, Moore TM, Gur RC, Gur RE. Parental age and offspring psychopathology in the Philadelphia neurodevelopmental cohort. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2017;56(5):391–400.
Dickstein DP. Born at the right time: examining the role of parental age on child psychopathology. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2017;56(5):369–70.
Shaw M, Lawlor DA, Najman JM. Teenage children of teenage mothers: psychological, behavioural and health outcomes from an Australian prospective longitudinal study. Soc Sci Med. 2006;62(10):2526–39.
Huang CY, Costeines J, Kaufman JS, Ayala C. Parenting stress, social support, and depression for ethnic minority adolescent mothers: impact on child development. J Child Fam Stud. 2014;23(2):255–62.
Siegel RS, Brandon AR. Adolescents, pregnancy, and mental health. J Pediatr Adolesc Gynecol. 2014;27(3):138–50.
Weis JR, Greene JA. Mental health in pregnant adolescents: focus on psychopharmacology. J Pediatr. 2015;169:297–304.
US Food and Drug Administration. FDA statement regarding background information on the suicidality classification project. 22 March 2004. https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/PostmarketDrugSafetyInformationforPatientsandProviders/ucm161679.htm.
Caritis SN, Venkataramanan R. Naltrexone use in pregnancy: a time for change. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2020;222(1):1.
Towers CV, Katz E, Weitz B, Visconti K. Use of naltrexone in treating opioid use disorder in pregnancy. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2020;222(1):83–e1.
Naveed S, Amray A, Waqas A, Chaudhary AM, Azeem MW. Use of N-acetylcysteine in psychiatric conditions among children and adolescents: a scoping review. Cureus. 2017;9(11):e1888.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Charguia, N., Swaringen, S. (2021). Special Considerations: Adolescent Pregnancy. In: Cox, E. (eds) Women's Mood Disorders. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71497-0_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71497-0_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-71496-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-71497-0
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)