Part of the knowledge available on teenage pregnancy pictures it as a defining event which influences, inevitably and negatively, the life of the young mother. This work investigated in what forms adolescent maternity has interfered in the construction of the biography of women who have lived this process. Twenty adult women were interviewed, 10 of them coming from middle-class and 10 from low-income families, who got pregnant before turning 18, and whose first-born are between 9 and 15 years old. Each interview was condensed in structures in which specific essential information are highlighted: (a) socio-economic, cultural and familial characteristics of the interviewee, of her partner, and their respective families; (b) pregnancy repercussions and subsequent arrangements; (c) motherhood experience and interferences perceived in familial and romantic relationships, in school and leisure activities, and in future projects; (d) conjugal life. The data show that repercussions occurred of different kinds, which were not always negative and limiting. The higher or lesser magnitude of the repercussions depends, fundamentally, of the socio-economic insertion condition of the families of the adolescent mother and her partner, and of the context in which these social inclusion and exclusion occur.
adolescent pregnancy; motherhood; social support