Text Box: ADOLESCENT PREGANCY: HEALTH AND NUTRITION Reina JC1, de Orozco B1, Spurr GB2, Dufour DL3 Department of Pediatrics1 and Physiological Sciences2, Universidad del Valle.Cali, Colombia. Department of Physiology, Medical College of Wisconsin2, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado3, USA. Introduction: For 1995, in Colombia, the adolescent fertility rate was estimated in 71 per 1000. Several investigators have shown that adolescent mothers have a higher prevalence of premature and low birth weight babies compared to adult mature women, with a possible competition for nutrients. Methods: 180 healthy pregnant adolescents, 12 to 17 years of age (study group), and 131 non-pregnant adolescents and 53 adult mature women as controls, recruited from a poor neighbourhood of Cali were included in the study. Sociodemographic, anthropometric, nutritional and health data were obtained at entry in the study, aproximately at 13 weeks of gestation, and then at 23 and 35 weeks of gestation. Short term growth rate was measured using the knee-height measuring device to correlate it with the newborn birth weight. Results: We did not find significant malnutrition in the population studied. Weight gain during gestation was adequate and comparable with WHO norms for Colombia. The great majority (85%) of the adolescents grew during gestation., and the newborn birth weight was adequate and comparable with the weight of the newborns of adult mature women. Conclusions: Adolescent pregnancy outcomes, for the mother and the newborn, can be normal if confounding variables are controlled adequately. We did not find a clear competition for nutrients between the still growing adolescent mother and the fetus.
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