![]() Recent reports indicate that over 16 million adolescent girls become pregnant globally every year, with 95% of these happening in low and middle income countries. Teenage, has been defined by the World Health Organization as the period from 10 to 19 years of age, and is generally classified into early adolescence (10–14 years) and late adolescence (15–19 years). It is also an important time for these teenagers to lay the foundations of good health in adulthood. Policies giving teenage mothers a second chance by encouraging them to return to school after childbirth should be encouraged as an alternative to early marriages.Īdolescence is such a distinctive transitional period from childhood to adulthood that is often characterized by physical, psychological and social changes. ![]() To reduce teenage pregnancy, the government of Sierra Leone and its partners should target married, older teenagers and those from poor households. The prevalence of teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone is high. After adjusting for confounders, the odds of teenage pregnancy among married girls were about 15 times more than the odds among those who were not married (aOR 15.31, 95% CI: 11.17–20.98) while the odds of teenage pregnancy among girls from the poorest households were 2.5 times more than the odds among girls from the richest households. The prevalence of teenage pregnancy was 22.1%. Multivariable logistic regression was conducted to determine the factors associated with teenage pregnancy using SPSS version 25(Armonk, NY: IBM Corp). Teenage pregnancy was defined as those who had ever either had a child, or terminated a pregnancy, or were currently pregnant. Multistage stratified sampling was used to select study participants. We used data from the 2019 Sierra Leone Demographic and Health Survey (SLDH), which included 3,427 female adolescents. To address the extensive social, political and economic effects of teenage pregnancy, there is need for current epidemiological evidence on its prevalence and associated factors, especially from low resource settings where the burden is highest. Globally, teenage pregnancy remains a public health concern because of the associated maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality.
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