Lived Experiences Of Adolescent Mothers Attending Mbale Regional Referral Hospital: A Phenomenological Study

Abstract Introduction Adolescence is a period of transition from childhood to adulthood and is thus a critical in ones’ development characterized by opportunities and risks. By 2016, 16% of the World’s population was of adolescents with 82% residing in developing countries. About 12million births are due to 15-19 year olds. Sub-Saharan Africa particularly East Africa has high adolescent pregnancy rates with ranges as high as 35.8% in Eastern Uganda. Of Uganda’s maternal mortality ratio of 336/100.000 live births, 17.1% were attributable to adolescents aged 15-19 years. Whereas research is awash with contributing factors to such pregnancies, little is known about their lived experiences during early motherhood. We therefore set to study the lived experiences of adolescent mothers attending our hospital. Methods A phenomenological study design was used in which adolescent mothers that were attending Young child clinic were identified from the register and simple random sampling used to select participants. We called these mothers by way of phone numbers and asked them to come for Focus group discussions that were limited to 9 mothers per group and lasting about 45minutes – 1hour. Ethical approval was sought for this study and mothers were consented prior to taking part. At every focus group discussion the data which had largely been taken in local languages was transcribed and translated verbatim into English. Results The research revealed that adolescent mothers go through hard times especially with the changes of pregnancy, fear of unknown during intrapartum and immediate postpartum period and largely treated negatively by parents, community members and their colleagues. They experience extreme hardships in parenting. However these early mothers’ stress is alleviated by the joy of seeing their own babies. Conclusion Adolescent mothers present a high risk mother group and efforts to support them during Antenatal care with special adolescent ANC clinics and continuous counseling together with their household should be emphasized to optimize outcome not only during pregnancy but also thereafter. Parents should endeavor to provide for the girl child. Skilling of such mothers and optimizing avenues to pursue education should be explored.