Adolescent pregnancy and anemia. Ten years of referrals in Northern Greece

Abstract

Background: Births from adolescent mothers account globally for 10 % of all births and 23 % of maternal morbidity and mortality. Adolescence is a period of rapid biological changes; therefore, teens have a risk of developing iron deficiency anemia. The present study aimed to determine the hematological profile and compare the distribution and the severity of anemia among pregnant adolescents (12-19 years old) over ten years in Northern Greece.

Material and methods: We conducted a retrospective study of pregnant adolescents' medical records and laboratory data recorded during their first prenatal consultation. The laboratory workout was performed in the Thalassemia Prevention Unit of the Hippokration Hospital of Thessaloniki, Greece, from 2013 to 2022.

Results: Two hundred nine of the adolescents were of Greek Nationality (88.3 %) (86 Greek natives of the general population; 41.1 %, 112 members of the Roma community; 53.5 %, 11 members of the Muslim minority of Thrace; 5.2 %) and 29 (11.6 %) were immigrants from the Balkans, Middle East, and Asia. The mean age (± standard deviation) of the 238 pregnant women in our study's cohort was 16.67 ± 1.67 years, and the majority of them (90 %) were approximately between 15-19 years, and 10 % were between 12-14 years. Half of the cohort were Greek Roma (47 %) and were our study's youngest (15.9 ± 1.3 years old) adolescent pregnant women. All registered pregnant adolescents had abandoned school. Our data shows anemia in 33.6 %, iron deficiency anemia in 28.5 %, and iron deficiency in 54.6% of these pregnant adolescents. Migrants and Roma had the lowest hemoglobin levels in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, respectively, while we found the lowest ferritin levels in Roma and Muslims of Thrace.

Conclusions: Despite existing knowledge regarding adolescent pregnancy prevalence and its adverse effects, it nonetheless remains a socio-medical problem and a matter of concern in our country. HIPPOKRATIA 2024, 28 (1):11-16.

Keywords: Anemia; Roma community; adolescent pregnancy; immigrants; iron deficiency.

Figure 1. Distribution of pregnancies between adolescent immigrants included in this retrospective study.

Figure 2. Number of anemia cases per trimester of pregnancy and based on adolescents’ origin.

Figure 3. Number of iron-deficient adolescent pregnancies per trimester of pregnancy based on adolescents’ origin.