Teenage pregnancy is associated with maternal and neonatal morbidity. Some postulate that it is due to biological immaturity, while others postulate that it is due to inadequate antenatal care. The objective of this study is to compare the maternal and neonatal outcome between married and unmarried teenage mothers. A retrospective study was conducted from 2009 to 2012, where mothers aged below 20 year old were included. Maternal and neonatal outcome was assessed. A total of 750 patients aged below 20 year old delivered at Hospital Ampang. The trend of teenage pregnancy decreased from 3.1% in 2009 to 2.2% in 2012. A total of 578 (77.1%) mothers were married, while 172 (22.9%) were unmarried. Being unmarried was significantly associated with unbooked (p<0.001), preterm birth (p= 0.00468), and lower birth weight (p< 0.0001, and unpaired T-Test with 95% CI -0.2607 to -0.0933). However there is no significant difference in the number of mothers with hypertensive disease (p= 0.88428), diabetes in pregnancy (p= 0.39602), mode of delivery (p= 0.055 vaginal delivery, p = 0.4419 caesarean section, and p= 0.9097 instrumental deliveries) and NICU admission (p= 0.3779) between the two groups. Unmarried teenage pregnancy is associated with a lack of antenatal care, preterm birth, and lower birth weight compared to their married counterpart.
Keywords: Marital status, pregnancy outcome, teenage pregnancy
Introduction:Orang Asli (OA) in Malaysia is considered vulnerable to social, economic and legal abuse. The in-crease in prevalence of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) among OA was reported due to their lifestyle changes. Our study aimed to determine the level of knowledge on NCDs among OA community and its’ association with demographic factors. Methods: A cross-sectional study by face-to-face interview was conducted among consented adult OA in Jelebu, Negeri Sembilan using a validated questionnaire. Their knowledge on risk factors, complica-tions and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases was asked. Respective thresholds and ranges for poor, moderate and good categories were set as 0-15, 15–21 and 21-28. Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis test was used to test the association between the demographic profile and knowledge score since the data was not normally distributed. Results: A total of 325 respondents with mean age 39.94 (±13.196) ranged from 18 to 83-year-old participated in this study. Majority were females (71.1%) with pri-mary education (39.1%) and mean household income of RM 615.47 (± 446.79). Their mean knowledge score was 12.82 (±9.671). Majority of them had poor knowledge (51.7%). The respondents with higher education background had significantly better knowledge score compared to lower education background (p