A study analysed data from India shows that teen pregnancies contribute to poor nutrition in babies. The paper recommends policies to delay marriage age especially in the villages where there is a high prevalence of child marriages. Data from 60,096 women from the National Family Health Survey examined how teenage pregnancy contributes to malnutrition among children.
According to the study, children born to adolescent mothers were 5 percentage points more likely to be stunted than those born to women aged between 20 to 24 years.Children born to adolescent mothers also had ten percentage points higher prevalence of low weight compared to those born to adult mothers. The low level of education among adolescent mothers had the strongest impact on stunting of children.
