Bangladesh: Too young to marry

Too many teenage girls are getting married in Bangladesh today, say health specialists. According to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) State of the World's Children 2009 report, more than 64 percent of girls marry before they are 18. But with early marriage comes early pregnancy. One-third of teenage girls aged 15 to 19 are mothers or pregnant in Bangladesh today, with adolescent mothers more likely to suffer birth complications than adult women, the British Medical Journal reports. Teenage mothers are twice as likely as older mothers to die from pregnancy- and childbirth-related complications, with mothers younger than 14 facing the greatest risks. In fact, research shows that the risk of maternal mortality could be five times higher for mothers aged 10 to 14 than for those aged 20 to 24, while babies born to mothers younger than 14 were 50 percent more likely to die than babies born to mothers older than 20. read the rest here