Teenage pregnancy has health risks for both mother and her baby and thus has implications for
maternal mortality (high blood pressure resulting from pregnancy, uterine infection, unsafe abortion
and malaria) and neonatal mortality (higher rate of pre-term births and low birth weight).
Adolescents aged less than 16 years face four times the risk of maternal death than women aged in
their 20s, and the death rate of their neonates is about 50% higher.
In Thailand in 2008, pregnancy-related causes were by far the single most important reason for hospitalization (23.7%) among children 13-18 years of age.