RESUMEN
The authors studied pregnancies in adolescents, younger than 18, from 1973 to 1983. The control group, randomly selected, consisted of 1000 child-bearing-women from 1976 (excluding adolescents and multiple pregnancies). The frequency of their labours was 3.24% and for the past five and a half years it decreased from 3.56% to 2.93% (P 0.05). There were 17.86 labours per 1000 adolescents in the age between 15 and 18. Adolescents are considerably more often living in rural areas, are single and unemployed than pregnant women in the control group. (P 0.001). EPH gestosis and threatened miscarriage are more frequent in adolescents than in the control group (P 0.05). Premature labour in adolescents occurs in 11.13% of cases, and postmature labour in 1.81% of cases, which is more frequent than in the control group (P 0.01). Pregnancy in adolescents lasts on the average 39.0 and in the control group 39.4 weeks. Adolescents are mostly primiparas (95.7%) and their labour lasts up to 12 hours (89.37%). Labours are mostly spontaneous (94.34%) and the frequency of cesarean sections is lower than in the control group (P 0.05). Adolescents' newborn infants are lighter than newborn infants in the control group (P 0.05). The newborn infants' birth weight increases with the age of their adolescents mothers. At birth, newborn infants of adolescent mothers have lower values of Apgar index than infants in the control group, have early neonatal complications in 16.06% of cases while infants in the control group in 12.40% of cases (P 0.05).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)