Teenage mothers and their partners a survey of England and Wales.

This monograph discusses the problems that face teenage mothers in the 15 months after the birth of their baby. A random sample was taken from births that occurred in 26 areas of England and Wales during 1979. Interviewers from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys first visited the mothers in their homes when the babies were 2 to 4 months old. Of the 623 teenage women who were selected for inclusion in the study 533 were interviewed the 1st time round and 456 the 2nd time round. At both stages structgured questionnaires were used seeking primarily factual information. Some of the fathers were also interviewed. Of the 533 women interviewed 10% were aged 16 or younger when they gave birth to their baby and 20% were aged 17. The vast majority were aged 18 or 19. Teenage mothers tend to come disproportionately from working-class families. A slightly high proportion of the sample babies were of low birthweight; a relatively high proportion of the babies were premature. At the initial interview 2/3 of the teenage mothers thought things had worked out bette than they had expected when they 1st discovered their pregnancy. A year later nearly 90% of the mothers said they were still pleased they has their sample baby when they did. Though there had been some improvement in the womens hhousing situation between the 2 interviews 23% said they were now worse off financially than the previous year. In addition the proportion who described their marriage as happy the proportion who thought their sample baby was easy to look after the proportion who thought things had worked out better than they had expected and the proportion who thought things wer going very well for them were all lower than in the previous year. Problems such as marital violence and breakdown poor housing depression smoking and birth control failures are analyzed.