Findings

Compared with women in their twenties and thirties, teenagers are much less likely to give birth.  For example, in 2003, there were 14.5 live births per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19, compared with 96.1 per 1,000 women aged 25 to 34 — the age group with the highest fertility rate.¹  Moreover, the fertility rate among teenagers has fallen almost steadily since the mid-1970s.^2,3  Even so, a substantial number of teen girls give birth each year, and some bear more than one baby before turning 20.

Early childbearing can have serious consequences for both the babies and their mothers.  Infants born to teenagers are more apt to experience adverse birth outcomes and die during their first year of life than are infants born to older women.^4-9  As well, the education and employment opportunities of the teens who have babies are often curtailed.  Consequently, young mothers and their children are likely to be economically disadvantaged.^10-15  And those girls who have more than one baby while still in their teens may face even greater challenges.

This article describes 1993-to-2003 trends in second or subsequent births to girls aged 15 to 19.  Provincial/Territorial and neighbourhood income differences are presented, and the prevalence of low birthweight is examined.  The figures are based on the most recently available data from the Canadian Vital Statistics Database, which includes information from birth registrations (see The data).

Teen births declining
Provincial/Territorial variations
Neighbourhood income
Low birthweight

Teen births declining

Registration of birth is required by law in all provinces and territories.  However, in 1996, Ontario introduced birth registration fees,¹⁶  and as of 2,000, up to 4,000 (3%) births in that province may not have been registered.^1,17  This is particularly likely for children born to teenage mothers and babies who died within days of birth (one-quarter of Ontario infant deaths do not have a matching birth registration).^1,18,19  Because births to teenagers are the focus of this article, Ontario data have been excluded from the analysis.

From 1993 through 2003, the rate of second or subsequent births to Canadian teenagers (excluding Ontario residents) declined from 4.8 to 2.4 births per 1,000 15- to 19-year-old girls.  This drop partly reflects a downturn in the overall teen fertility rate (Chart 1).  As a proportion of all teen births, those that were second or subsequent fell from 18.5% in 1993 to 15.2% in 2003 (data not shown).  Nonetheless, during that period, nearly 25,000 Canadian teenagers gave birth to their second or subsequent child (data not shown).

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Provincial/Territorial variations

The rate of second or subsequent births among teens varied across the country.  For the 2001-to-2003 period, the average annual rate was strikingly high in Nunavut (31.9 per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19), and was also above the national average (2.6)  in Manitoba (6.8), Saskatchewan (6.3) and Alberta (3.1) (Chart 2).  Rates were below the national level in Nova Scotia, Quebec and British Columbia.

Provinces and territories with high rates of second or subsequent births to teens tended to have relatively large numbers of Aboriginal residents.^20,21  Unlike the Canadian population overall, Aboriginal peoples have not experienced the trend toward delayed first births.²²  For example, in 1999, more than 1 in 5 First Nations babies were born to mothers aged 15 to 19,²³ whereas the comparable figure for Canada as a whole was 1 in 20 (data not shown).

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Neighbourhood income

Canadian birth registrations do not contain information about socio-economic status.  For this analysis, neighbourhood income data from the census, which were linked to the birth data by means of the mother’s postal code, were used to approximate household income.

Teenagers delivering their second or subsequent child were highly concentrated in low-income neighbourhoods.  Half the 15- to 19-year-olds who had a second or subsequent child in the 2001-to-2003 period resided in neighbourhoods that were in the lowest quintile of the neighbourhood income distribution (Chart 3).  By contrast, 25- to 34-year-old women who had a second or subsequent child in that period were fairly evenly distributed across the income groups.

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Low birthweight

A newborn's chances of survival are closely associated with birthweight.  Low-birthweight infants (less than 2,500 grams) have higher mortality and more physical health problems than do babies whose weight at birth was normal.^4-6,9,24

In the 2001-to-2003 period, the proportion of second or subsequent births that were low-birthweight was significantly higher for teen mothers than for mothers aged 25 to 34:  6.1% versus 3.7% (Chart 4).  Rates of low birthweight among second or subsequent births to teen mothers did not vary significantly by neighbourhood income quintile.  By contrast, among women aged 25 to 34, these rates were higher in low-income neighbourhoods.  This suggests that for teens who have a second or subsequent child, the risk of low birthweight is elevated, regardless of their household income.