Disrupted childhoods can result in earlier pregnancies

A recent study has found that childhood setbacks for girls can greatly impact their adult lives and brings forward the age at which they have a child of their own.

The study, which was lead by Daniel Nettle a behavioural scientist at the Institute of Neuroscience, incorporated 4,500 women across the UK and found that girls who are not breastfed as babies or who grow up without a father are likely to have their own children earlier.

The team of researchers found there are four kinds of ‘disruption’ which seem to effect young girls the most, bringing forward the age at which they first become pregnant by an average of six months.

The four major factors that seemed to cause the most impact on the age at which a woman had her first child were: whether she was breastfed, how involved her parents were in her upbringing, whether her father was present and whether her parents moved house regularly.

Nettle explains that what happens early on in childhood has a huge impact on the remainder of our lives and though we may advise 14 and 15 year old girls not to have children young, events from their early years may have resulted in them developing short term goals such as having babies young way before sex education even begins.

”Rather than just telling girls to use condoms, authorities should think much more about the context of people’s early years.” He said.

Original article