About the Book

Written by a pediatrician/adolescent medicine specialist and a developmental psychologist, this book is a collection of informative, nonredundant yet comprehensive studies on adolescent pregnancy and parenting. More than 200 adolescent women in an ethnically diverse sample were studied prenatally and at regular 6-month intervals for 3½ years postpartum. Most of the teens were poor, unmarried, first-time mothers who resided within Southeast San Diego, a poor urban area approximately 10 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Purpose and Focus

The purpose of this book was to offer researchers, practitioners, program directors, teachers, and graduate and medical students a better understanding of teenage pregnancy and parenthood within the following domains:

• adolescent prenatal care and postpartum maternal and infant health outcomes
• immediate repeat pregnancy
• adolescent mothers' parenting
• the role of the adolescent's mother in teenage mothers' parenting
• the baby's father