Nutritional status and socio-economic problems of adolescent pregnant girls: A case study of Morogoro, Coast and Dar es salaam regions
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Date
2002
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Adolescence is a distinct and dynamic phase of development and considered to be the
period between 10 and 19 years of age. It marks the onset of puberty. In some
communities, it means the girl child is ready to engage in marital affairs and bear
children. This dissertation presents the results of a study conducted in Temeke, Kibaha
and Morogoro districts to examine the socio-economic factors and nutritional problems
of adolescent pregnant girls. Specifically, the study examined prevalence of adolescent
pregnancies, factors contributing to early pregnancies, problems faced by pregnant
adolescent girls, pre-pregnancy nutritional status, nutritional status during pregnancy and
pregnancy outcome. Primary data were collected from 180 pregnant adolescent girls and
600 non-pregnant adolescent girls. Nutritional status was assessed by anthropometric
and biochemical methods. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was employed
to analyse the data. Prevalence of adolescent pregnancy was found to be 21.5% for
Temeke district, 19.5% in Kibaha district and 17.7% in Morogoro district. Factors
identified to contribute to early pregnancy are: traditions and culture of initiation rites,
lack of knowledge on family planning, fear of side effects associated with family
planning methods and economic hardship among adolescent girls. It was further
observed that adolescent girls encounter many problems such as unplanned pregnancies
and marriages, dropout from school, late detection of pregnancy, late antenatal visit to
detect any abnormalities, rejection by their partners after conception, and economic
dependence.
Description
Dissertation
Keywords
Nutritional status, Morogoro, Dar es salaam, Adolescent, Social-economic problems, Pregnant girls