Adolescent pregnancies and health issues in Uttar Pradesh: Some policy implications

In the globalization era, adolescent pregnancies have become an important health issue. Teenage mothers have bigger disadvantage in terms of socio-economic factors. In Uttar Pradesh teenage mothers are found in the poorer households with less education. The logistic regression shows that odd ratio for the teenage mothers are more in rural area. The odd is higher for scheduled caste, tribe and other backward caste as compare to other caste households. The adolescent mothers of low standard of living index has higher odd ratio as compare to the adolescent mothers of higher standard of living index. Teenage mothers do not use the family planning methods and prenatal care. They do not deliver the baby in the health care facility and breastfeed their baby immediately after the delivery. The odd ratio is higher for no breastfeeding after child birth. In order to reduce the teenage pregnancy, government of Uttar Pradesh must generate more self employment opportunities to women and girls. The vocational training will improve the employment possibilities among adolescent girls. Government must provide the health care facilities to the poorer households. Such policies will reduce the adolescent pregnancies in the state