NEW DELHI: Children born to teenage mothers are more likely to be undernourished than children of adult mothers, explained a new study which examined links between teenage pregnancy and child undernutrition in India.
The authors of the study, which was published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health recently, analysed data for 60,097 mother-child pairs and examined the extent to which teenage pregnancy is associated with child undernutrition.
They also explored potential social, biological and programmatic factors linking early pregnancy to child undernutrition.
‘Social, biological and programmatic factors link adolescent pregnancy to early childhood undernutrition: a path analysis of India’s 2016 National Family and Health Survey’, is co-authored by IFPRI’s Phuong Hong Nguyen, Samuel Scott, Sumanta Neupane, and Purnima Menon and Lan Mai Tran of FHI360, a non-profit.
India is home to more stunted children than any other country and is one of the ten countries with the largest burden of teenage pregnancy.
Although marriage before 18 years is illegal in India, the 2016 National Family and Health Survey (NFHS)-4 revealed that 27 per cent of girls are married before their 18th birthday and further, 31 per cent of married Indian women give birth by the age of 18.
“Reducing adolescent pregnancy in India can hasten our progress towards achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, particularly those related to poverty, health, nutrition, general wellbeing, equity, and education,” said Nguyen, also a research fellow with International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). (AGENCIES)
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