ABSTRACT
Pregnancy in adolescents is a public health problem that should be evaluated in the framework of a socio ecological model. Puerto Rico is among the countries with a higher pregnancy rate among adolescents, 42 per 1000 births for 2002. This is an observational cross-sectional study of deliveries of pregnant adolescents carried out at Hospital San Lucas II between the years 2000 to 2004. The total number of deliveries that fulfilled the selection criteria was 110. The data was obtained from the medical record of the mother and the newborn. The variables analyzed were: age, prenatal care, age of gestation, birthweight of the newborn, Apgar, maternal infections, infections in the newborn, education of the mother, work and marital state. The percentage of deliveries preterm was greater than the expected for adult women. The outcomes in the newborns preterm were worse than those born at term. The percentage of caesarean sections in the adolescents was smaller than in the population of women in general. Teenage mothers tend to drop out of school. The results of our study indicate the need of interventions following an ecological model in order to be more effective in the prevention of adolescent pregnancies and its consequences.