Objectives: (1) to identify the number of teenage pregnant women who also have mothers who became pregnant when they were in their teenage years and (2) to explore the importance of this intergenerational experience on the teenagers themselves, their significant family, friends and society as a whole.
Design: semi-structured interviews with the subjects allowed for both breadth and depth exploration.
Sample: the total research sample was 95 teenage women, which included 48 pregnant (51%) and 47 non-pregnant (49%) women. Stage 1 reports on the findings relating to the intergenerational phenomena and stage 2 focuses on related historical experiences of a further 8 interviews with subjects who had experienced this intergenerational phenomenon. The subjects in both stages of this study came from two contrasting demographic areas of the UK: North West and South East.
Measurements: data were analysed using an appropriate qualitative software package. The specific categories of experience were constructed using a grounded theory approach.
Findings: the findings of stage 1 of the study showed that the number of teenage women who reported that they had a mother who's first baby was born to her when she was under 20 years of age was 33 (69%) for the pregnant group and 12 (26%) for the non-pregnant group. This was found to be statistically significant (chi(2)=6.51, df=1, p=<0.011). In this study (from a sub-set of 19 themes) three major themes emerged: (a) reflection, (b) peer group pressure and (c) intergenerational factors.
Conclusions: reflection, peer group pressure and intergenerational factors were the major thematic findings of this study. Midwives working collaboratively with other health, social and educational colleagues have a pivotal role to work with families in addressing the complexities of intergenerational teenage pregnancy. A national multi-method research study is now required to explore the breadth of intergenerational teenage pregnancy and the experiences of those families where this social construct is prevalent.