Identification of sociocultural and pregnancy-related health risks of adolescent pregnants under 18 in Iraq Babylon province

Adolescent pregnancy has interaction with socioeconomic and other multifacet factors health-related factors. They are more likely to grow a higher risk of accidents, behavioral problems, and becoming adolescent mothers because adolescence is a critical period in which the girl is in the process of physical and mental development. This study aimed to identificate sociocultural and pregnancy-related health risks of adolescent pregnancy in the department of pregnant women who came for antenatal control in hospitals in the center of Babylon Governorate in Iraq. A simple random sampling method, which is accepted as one of the probability-based sampling methods, was used in the sample selection of the descriptive study. The study was conducted on 196 adolescent pregnant women. The data of the research were collected between 1 March to 31 May 2022. London Scale of Unplanned Pregnancy (LMUP), Thoughts on Teen Parenting, Adolescent Sexual Attitudes and Behavior, Adolescent Health Risk Factors questionnaires were used to collect data. It was determined that 36% of the adolescents were 17 years old and 63.3% of them lived in the rural area. Only 9.2% adolescents were still studying. Regarding the level of education 54.1% of adolescents education level was primary level and 90.8% were housewives. Adolescents' 89.3% lived with both parents. The majority of the adolecents with 64.8% married due to parents request and 43.9% of them divorced one year later. and 32.1% of them gave their first birth at the age of 17. LMUP mean score was 7.64±1.25 which means adolescents had feeling of ambivalence of planning pregnancy. There was a significant difference in the LMUP scores between students and housewives (p<0.05). Housewives' LMUPS scores were lower than students' which means housewives were found to be more ambivalent about getting pregnant than students. The majority of adolescents stated that being a parent at a young age will negatively affect their friendship relations and they will need more money financially. Furthermore, more than half of them reported that it was not easy to be a parent at a young age, although they stated that they would get support from their families in baby care and there would be problems in education. All adolescent pregnants did not have sexual experiences and they thought most men did not have intercourse before marriage. Although the majority of adolescent did not believe in the efficacy of sex education, they thought it was needed for sex education in school. It has been determined that adolescents had very less knowledge about health risk factors during pregnancy. Adolescent pregnants face many challenges, including unplanned pregnancies, financial constraints, limited social life and education and knowledge access. In this context, it is thought that these difficulties that they experience may be adversely affected both in terms of their health and socioeconomic status, and may cause negative effects on their children's lives in the long term. Accordingly, it is recommended to organize training, counseling and follow-up programs to identify and improve the sociocultural and pregnancy-related health risks of pregnant women under the age of 18 and carry out studies on this subject with a larger sample.