Development Status of 4-24 Months Children Born to Teenage Mothers Referred to Health Care Centers in Yasuj, 2013

A developmental delay in children is considered as one of the world''s health problems in developing and developed countries. This has a massive impact on children’s health and eventually has broader scale effect on society. The purpose of this study was to assess the developmental status of children age 4-24 months to teenage mothers referred to health care centers related to Yasuj University of Medical Sciences، Yasuj، Iran، in 2013. The present cross-sectional study was conducted on 200 mothers less than 19 years of age with children of 4-24 months referred to health centers of Yasuj University of Medical Sciences which were selected by multistage sampling. Data collection was conducted using demographic، midwifery ages and stages questionnaire in children aged 24-4 months. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics، t-test and chi-square test. The results showed that the mean age of mothers during pregnancy were16. 64±1. 22 years with age range 12 to 18 years. Prevalence of delayed development in 4-24 month children was reported to be 7%. Most developmental delay was observed in gross motor area and the lowest was in the private personal and social domains. In this study، a significant difference was seen in birth weight between two groups of children، so that birth weight of children with developmental delay significantly lowers than children with normal development (P=0. 027). the Pregnancy under the age of 19 years is considered as risk factors for children’s developmental disorder that by the implementation of appropriate education to reduce high-risk pregnancies in this age range can be prevented the developmental disorders and their adverse outcome.