Counting the invisible: Uncovering the childbearing trends of West Africa’s youngest adolescents

Ann Garbett, Professor Brienna Perelli-Harris and Dr Sarah Neal

Pregnancy in adolescence can pose severe health risks and long term social and economic disadvantage to young mothers and their babies, but childbearing patterns among the youngest remain essentially invisible.

Common fertility measures exclude mothers aged 14 years and younger, and do not distinguish 15-year-old mothers from 19-year-olds even though the causes and consequences of motherhood at these ages differ considerably.

Repeat births in adolescence, which carry additional serious health risks, are also obscured by traditional measures. Almost nothing is known about patterns of second and third (or more) births to adolescents.

Our innovative research, using nationally representative survey data, dives deep into West Africa’s adolescent childbearing trends to detail the patterns of the youngest vulnerable mothers. It reveals important and alarming trends.

The findings emerged from a research project entitled The untold story of fifty years of adolescent fertility in West Africa: A cohort perspective on the quantum, timing, and spacing of adolescent childbearing . The project has been supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership (SCDTP).

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