Early pregnancy and childbirth
- The leading cause of death for 15-19 year-old girls globally is complications from pregnancy and childbirth.
- Some 11% of all births worldwide are to girls aged 15–19 years.
- The vast majority of these births are in low- and middle-income countries.
- The UN Population Division puts the global adolescent birth rate in 2018 at 44 births per 1000 girls this age – country rates range from 1 to over 200 births per 1000 girls.
- One of the specific targets of the health Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 3) is that by 2030, the world should ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes.
- To support this, a proposed indicator for the Global strategy for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health is the adolescent birth rate.
- Laws that are enforced that specify a minimum age of marriage at 18 can help. My
- Girls who do become pregnant need access to quality antenatal care.