title: Pregnancy in the unwed White South African.
abstract: A sociological and obstetric analysis of 130 unwed Afrikaans- and English-speaking mothers showed that 78% of English-speaking and 61% of Afrikaans-speaking mothers preferred to keep their babies. More than 80% of women in both language groups did not use contraceptives. There were no statistically significant differences between the unwed mothers and a married control group as regards antenatal anaemia, toxaemia of pregnancy, antepartum haemorrhage and breech presentation. Labour lasted longer than 18 hours in 8.6% of English-speaking unwed mothers but in none of the Afrikaans group. English-speaking mothers who gave up their babies for adoption had a higher incidence of prolonged labour, toxaemia, forceps delivery and premature birth.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D036861:Delivery, Obstetric; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007086:Illegitimacy; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007234:Infant, Premature; D007743:Labor, Obstetric; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000453:epidemiology; D012961:Sociology; D013019:South Africa