Teen Pregnancy A Vicious Cycle Study Finds Children Likely To Be Teen Parents Themselves

Children born to teenage mothers are far more likely to drop out of high school, live in poverty and become teen moms themselves, a study says.

Daughters born to teen moms in inner-city Baltimore in the early 1960s were 3.6 times more likely to be on welfare than those with mothers older than 25, according to the study in this month’s issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Furthermore, 40 percent of daughters and 18 percent of the sons born to teenage mothers became young parents themselves. Yet just 22 percent of daughters and 6 percent of sons born to mothers over 25 became teenage parents.

“I hope it would encourage people to promote waiting to have a child until the parents were at least 25,” said Dr. Janet Hardy, the leader of the study and a professor emeritus of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University.

The study “reinforces the need to prevent teenage pregnancy,” she said.

Children born to women who were in their mid-20s or older were more likely to become successful, self-sufficient adults, according to the study.

Nearly three-quarters of the children born to mothers 25 and older graduated from high school, compared with 62 percent of those whose mothers were younger than 20.

Researchers suggested that older moms raise more successful kids because the mothers are more mature and more likely to be financially secure.

Peter Kivisto, a sociology professor at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill., who studies teenage pregnancy, agreed that the mother’s age is a solid predictor of how successful their children will be.