Abstract

SANTOS, Niraldo de Oliveira et al. Teenage pregnancy in the Sururu de Capote slums, in Maceió, Alagoas. Psicol. hosp. (São Paulo) [online]. 2014, vol.12, n.2, pp. 45-64. ISSN 1677-7409.

Introduction: In Maceió, the capital city of the State of Alagoas in Brazil, 30.6 percent of mothers are teenagers. Objective: To study the issue of teenage pregnancy in the Sururu de Capote slums, in Maceió. Method: Semi-scripted interviews with 80 pregnant women between 10 and 19 years, 11 months of age. Results: On the average, subjects were 16.92 years old; the average number of children per subject was 1.63; the average age at the first sexual encounter was 14.01. Forty-five percent of the subjects reported using contraceptive methods and 82.5 percent of the subjects reported knowing about the risk of becoming pregnant. It was found that pregnant women whose grandmothers, mothers or sisters were pregnant during their teenage years were more likely to want to become pregnant themselves (p=0.005). Conclusion: Teenage pregnancy has closely related to social facets to it, especially the coveted social status granted by motherhood, making these young women travel once again the road paved by their senior female relatives.

Keywords : Pregnancy; Adolescence; Adolescent Behavior.

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