Abstract: Science Set Journal of Cancer Research

Abstract:
In the Rural Health Zone of Idjwi in particular, in the province of South Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the phenomenon of early pregnancy constitutes a real public health problem. Unfortunately the data is not well documented to date. This is why this phenomenon particularly caught our attention. In view of this problem, we ask ourselves the following questions: what are the factors favoring the occurrence of early pregnancies in adolescents and what are the impacts? What about the Idjwi Health Zone in particular? We will limit ourselves to investigating only the ladies who gave birth at the KIHUMBA hospital center from June 2022 until June 2023. For the realization of this work, we opted for a prospective, qualitative exploratory method. We conducted a survey of 3 health areas that deserving the Kihumba Hospital Center. These are exactly the mothers who come to give birth in our hospital, with an emphasis on those who gave birth under the age of 20. During the period of our study, which lasted one year, the Kihumba Hospital Center interned 743 women who gave birth, of whom 102 were under 20 years old (13.7%). Among the 743 who gave birth, 543 (73%) had had their first child before the age of 20. The average age of the first pregnancy of those giving birth under the age of 20 was 15 years ; most of them were in a common-law union with a low level of education. The majority of our respondents had their first sexual intercourse at the age of 16 ; there are even those who had it around 12 years old. The most cited risk factors are the desire to become responsible, ignorance of the menstrual cycle, the desire to become a mother, the search for money because of the irresponsibility of parents who are poor. We should also point out early pregnancies that occurred after cases of rape and sexual violence that were not reported for fear of being squandered.