Sabet, F;
Prost, A;
Rahmanian, S;
Al Qudah, H;
Cardoso, MN;
Carlin, JB;
Sawyer, SM;
(2023)
The forgotten girls: the state of evidence for health interventions for pregnant adolescents and their newborns in low-income and middle-income countries.
The Lancet
, 402
(10412)
pp. 1580-1596.
10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01682-3.
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Abstract
Every year, an estimated 21 million girls aged 15–19 years become pregnant in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Policy responses have focused on reducing the adolescent birth rate whereas efforts to support pregnant adolescents have developed more slowly. We did a systematic review of interventions addressing any health-related outcome for pregnant adolescents and their newborn babies in LMICs and mapped its results to a framework describing high-quality health systems for pregnant adolescents. Although we identified some promising interventions, such as micronutrient supplementation, conditional cash transfers, and well facilitated group care, most studies were at high risk of bias and there were substantial gaps in evidence. These included major gaps in delivery, abortion, and postnatal care, and mental health, violence, and substance misuse-related outcomes. We recommend that the fields of adolescent, maternal, and sexual and reproductive health collaborate to develop more adolescent-inclusive maternal health care and research, and specific interventions for pregnant adolescents. We outline steps to develop high-quality, evidence-based care for the millions of pregnant adolescents and their newborns who currently do not receive this.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The forgotten girls: the state of evidence for health interventions for pregnant adolescents and their newborns in low-income and middle-income countries |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01682-3 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01682-3 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Pregnancy, Female, Infant, Newborn, Adolescent, Humans, Developing Countries, Pregnant Women, Violence, Abortion, Spontaneous, Abortion, Induced |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10183844 |
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