li - minsante-cdnss.cm

esponded to the indebt interview. The mean age of the girls interviewed was 20 years. 23.8%
of girls have had at least one abortion.28% of aIl those interviewed have had problems during
pregnancy and 32% during childbirth. The interviewees have notice consequences like death or
sterility among teenagers ofthe same age as a result ofchildbirth or abortion. 37/78 ofthe girls
who have had abortion carried this out without any medical assistance, and 13% of the girls
who have put to birth did this at home, without any medical assistance. Only 17% of the girls
were attending school, more 2/3 were not at school nor did they had a job. 49% of the study
population had to take care alone oftheir babies. 18% and 35.30% of the girls postpone or left
school because of childbirth. 36.80% were not happy for being pregnant, not because of
medical risk but for other reasons. A majority of them (2/3) agreed that the age of a girl at the
first pregnancy is 19 to 20 years, but they were much more preoccupied by social maturity than
pllysical maturity. Meaning that they didn't know about the medical consequences. As far as
the detenninants of early pregnancies are concemed we have found that the mean age of the
girls when they had their Ist boyfriend and Ist sexual intercourse was 15.64 and 15.99 years
respectively. We also found that 17% had no infotmation on reproductive health, while the
others were lacking good information. 2.5% of the girls did not attend antenatal consultation
during their pregnancy.
At the end of our study we have noticed that many young teenage mothers are not aware
of the medical consequences of childbirth at tlleir age. In the future, reproductive health's
programs sllould lay emphasis on the risk of teenage clùldbirth in other to sensitize the
adolescent girls on the risk they stand as far as carly pregnancy is concemed.
xvi