Vulnerable Teens Make When Childbirth Bone

Vulnerable Teens Make When Childbirth Bone

Women who first gave birth as teenagers are more at risk of developing osteoporosis than women who first give birth at older ages. Approximately 40% of adult women bone mass is formed during adolescence. Decreased bone density during pregnancy because calcium is absorbed by the fetus.
Using data from national health surveys in Korea in 2008, researchers analyzed the risk of osteoporosis in 719 Korean women. A total of 93 participants had to have her first baby at age 18. The mothers in the research on average give birth for the first time at the age of 24 years.


The study, published the journal Menopause found that the rate of osteoporosis in women who gave birth the first time as a teenager by 62.4% and in women who gave birth the first time after going through adolescence is at 35.8%. Level of fracture risk in both groups respectively 5.4% and 2.2%.
Most of the subjects who gave birth as teenagers born before 1950 and a teenager at the outbreak of World War II and Korean War, a time when nutritious food is hard to find in Korea.
"Women who become pregnant as a teenager the first time a possible increased risk of osteoporosis after menopause and susceptible to fractures," the researchers said as quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Friday (08/06/2012).
Using dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), researchers found that postmenopausal women who had become pregnant as a teenager, her bone density was lower in the whole pelvis, neck and spine than in postmenopausal women who never became pregnant as a teenager.
Women who are pregnant as a teenager has a 1.84-fold risk of developing osteoporosis after menopause compared to those never pregnant in their teens.
This conclusion remains even after adjusting for age, age at first mensruasi, age at menopause, body mass index, education level, exercise habits, household income, alcohol intake, calcium intake, energy intake, marital status, smoking history, and use of hormone therapy and vitamin D.
The research team found that compared with women with no history of pregnancy during adolescence, menopause and women who have been pregnant as a teenager higher risk of developing osteoporosis.