Journal of Pregnancy and Child Health
Open Access

Research Article

Low Birth Weight and Prematurity in Teenage Mothers in Rural Areas of Burkina Faso

¹UCL-IREC-EPID, Epidemiology and Biostatistics Research Division, Belgium

²IRSS-Clinical Research Unit of Nanoro, Burkina Faso

³Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Yalgado Ouédraogo, Burkina Faso

⁴Public Health Department, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Belgium

⁵Global Health Institute, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

⁶Medical Research Council Unit, The Gambia

⁷London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK

Corresponding Author:

Biébo Bihoun
UCL-IREC-EPID
Epidemiology and Biostatistics Research Division
Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32465319545
Fax: +3227643322
E-mail: biebo.bihoun@uclouvain.be

Received date: July 13, 2017; Accepted date: August 24, 2017; Published date: August 31, 2017

Citation: Bihoun B, Zango SH, Traoré-Coulibaly M, Rouamba T, Zemba D, et al. (2017) Low Birth Weight and Prematurity in Teenage Mothers in Rural Areas of Burkina Faso. J Preg Child Health 4:344. doi:10.4172/2376-127X.1000344

Copyright: © 2017 Bihoun B, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Background: Adolescence is associated with adverse fetal outcome, particularly in resources limited settings. We assessed the association between mother’s age and low birth weight or prematurity in Nanoro, a rural health district of Burkina Faso. Methods: We collected data on mothers and their newborns in the framework of the “Safe and Efficacious Artemisinin-based Combination Treatments for African Pregnant Women with Malaria” clinical trial. Low birth weight or prematurity was defined as adverse fetal outcome. Logistic regression was used to compare its occurrence in teenagers and in women aged ≥ 20 years. Results: From June 2010 to November 2013, 870 pregnant women enrolled in the PREGACT study were treated for a Plasmodium falciparum infection and followed up until delivery. Of the 823 women with singleton live-borns, 205 (24.9%) were teenagers of whom 44 (5.3%) were minors (15-17 years). Up to 91.7% of adolescents presented with anemia at entry. The incidence of adverse fetal outcome in teenagers was 39.8%, increasing to 50.0% in minors. Anemic adolescents were significantly at higher risk of delivering low birth weight or preterm babies compared to their older counterparts. In multivariate analysis, teenagers with both anemia and fever presented the highest and significant odds ratios of adverse fetal outcome, whatever was their BMI: Teenagers with anemia, fever and high BMI at entry, AOR=3.46, 95% CI: (1.40, 8.58), teenagers with anemia, fever and low BMI at entry, AOR=2.86, 95% CI: (1.14, 7.13). Conclusion: Teenager’s pregnancy is associated with adverse fetal outcome in the rural health district of Nanoro, mainly when teenagers experiment anemia and fever. In low resources setting, multidisciplinary approach including education and setting up favorable socio-economic environment are needed to prevent early motherhood.

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