Consequences of Teenage Motherhood

Background: Teenage motherhood is a major health challenge in most developing countries. World Health Organization reported that each year, sixteen million adolescents become mother. Early motherhood in adolescent is associated with consequences in health status, education, and socioeconomic condition.Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the consequences of teenage motherhood in Iranian cultures.Materials and Methods: This qualitative study was done using the conventional inductive content analysis approach. A purposive sample of eighteen Iranian mothers, with the experience of early motherhood, was recruited with maximum variation in terms of their age at their first pregnancy, their children’s age, place of residence, and financial status. Data collection was done via in-depth semi-structured interviews and continued up to data saturation. The MAXQDA software (v. 10.0) was employed for handling the data.Results: Iranian mothers’ experiences of the outcomes of teenage motherhood extracted into two main categories which were named positive outcomes of early motherhood and negative outcomes of early motherhood . The four subcategories of the first category were the acceleration of intellectual and mental maturation, strengthening of family relationships, developing a strong identity, and closer companionship with the child. The second main category also included four subcategories, namely experiencing numerous difficulties, threats to mothers’ physical and mental health, threats to children’s health, and missing opportunities.Conclusion: Teenage motherhood is not merely a negative experience; rather it is also associated with different positive outcomes. Healthcare providers, particularly nurses, need to provide high quality prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal care services to adolescent mothers and use available opportunities to strongly support them and their children.

Keywords:

Adolescent mothers , consequences , Qualitative , Iran