Patterns of physical and psychological development in future teenage mothers

Abstract

The developmental patterns of teenage mothers are consistent with the idea that early childbearing is a component of an accelerated reproductive strategy induced by early-life conditions. The implications for interventions likely to affect the rate of teenage childbearing are discussed.

Human susceptibility to social influence and its neural correlates are related to perceived vulnerability to extrinsic morbidity risks

“…Interestingly, environmental harshness has been shown to alter individuals’ behaviour in significant ways 21 , 24 , 68 , 69 . An increasing number of evidence suggests that harsh and unpredictable environments trigger an adaptive search for immediate instead of long-term benefits in various domains such as health 70 , reproduction 71 , parenting 72 , economic decision-making 73 or cooperation 74 . In addition, recent data suggest that cumulative adversity experienced up to adulthood – a variable that conceptually overlaps with exposure to environmental harshness – leads to significant changes in the structure of the medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices as well as in the insula 75 – 79 .…”

How does childhood socioeconomic hardship affect reproductive strategy? Pathways of development

“…One study that did attempt to test this found that the direct effects of adversity were much stronger than the psychosocial mediators they used (emotional and behavioral problems) on age at first pregnancy among contemporary British women (Nettle et al ). Another study using UK data compared both behavioral and physiological traits of teenage mothers matched with a control group of women on SES background, age, and gestational age (Nettle et al, ). Their findings show differences in both types of traits—physiological and behavioral—between the two groups of women, however, as the analysis only showed differences between the two groups for each variable singly, we have no way of knowing the relative strength of each trait or if some of the apparent differences fall away once controlling for others.…”

“…Therefore, we predict that high levels of childhood disadvantage will lead to lower birth weight, faster infant weight gain, and poorer health during the first year of life. These factors should in turn be associated with poor growth resulting in shorter stature, and earlier menarche, which is also associated with higher BMI during middle childhood (Nettle et al, ). The reason that lower birth weight should be associated with higher BMI (but not taller stature) is because undernourished newborns tend to adopt a catch‐up growth strategy, which is associated with insulin resistance, more central adiposity (visceral fat), and other factors related to obesity (Ong et al, ).…”

Middle Childhood: An Evolutionary-Developmental Synthesis

“…This can be interpreted as a manifestation of physiological dysregulation due to prenatal adversity or as an adaptive programming effect on children's metabolic processes and life history trajectories. This alternative interpretation is supported by the association between low birth weight, anticipated puberty, and early childbearing in women (e.g., Nettle et al 2013). A third possibility is that low birth weight partly reflects reduced energetic and metabolic investment by the mother during pregnancy, which may be adaptive as a component of a fast life history strategy.…”