Patterns of physical and psychological development in future teenage mothers

Teenage childbearing may have childhood origins and can be viewed as the outcome of a coherent reproductive strategy associated with early environmental conditions. Life-history theory would predict that where futures are uncertain fitness can be maximized through diverting effort from somatic development into reproduction. Even before the childbearing years, future teenage mothers differ from their peers both physically and psychologically, indicating early calibration to key ecological factors. Cohort data have not been deliberately collected to test life-history hypotheses within Western populations. Nonetheless, existing data sets can be used to pursue relevant patterns using socioeconomic variables as indices of relevant ecologies.