Do children of teen mothers have a higher risk of health issues than those with adult parents? The answer is yes, children that have teenage parents may have health problems when they are growing up. In this blog I will be focusing on the children of the teen mothers rather than teen moms and their statistics. There are a lot of challenges that babies from teen mothers face. Children from teen mothers are more likely to be born prematurely and may be under weight, this increases the risk of several different disabilities that may be long-term. The daughters of teen mothers are 22% more likely to become teen mothers themselves and the sons are 13% more likely to be in prison. These children may also experience more abuse or neglect from their teen parents compared to the parents who are older and have waited to have a child. Children that have mothers from the ages of 18-19 are almost 40% more likely to have a reported case of abuse or neglect than those mothers who are between the ages of 20-21. Abuse that is reported may cause the child to be put in a foster home.
FOSTER CARE The chart above shows the children that are put in foster care. As the chart shows, teen mothers are teenagers are more likely to be entered into a foster care or have different people take care of them through their young lives. Close to 1/3 of girls that come out of foster care have at least one child.
ADOPTION About 1 million children in the United States live with adoptive parents. 2% of women at any age place their child up for adoption, and less then 1% of teenage mothers put their child up for adoption. Teen moms mostly give birth to their child/children. The rate for teenage mothers putting their children up for adoption has declined over the years.