BONTOC, Mountain Province – The youngest mother at the age of 13 years old has been registered in 2022.
It can be recalled that in 2021, the youngest mother who registered her child was 16 years old.
According to Municipal Civil Registrar Valentina Domaoa of the Municipal Civil Registry Office (MCRO), the number of teenage mothers in 2022 increased by 39.28% compared to the previous year.
Per data from the Philippine Statistics Authority and the MCRO, the MCRO has registered a total of 767 Live Births, 39 of which were teenage mothers while 609 births to include 28 teenage mothers were registered in 2021.
Further, the PSA reported that about one in every ten teenage mothers in the entire Mountain Province was registered in this capital town.
Domaoa mentioned that out of the 39 registered teenage mothers in 2022, 17 are natives of Bontoc and the remaining 22 are from other neighboring municipalities/provinces who gave birth and registered in the municipality.
According to the World Health Organization, adolescent mothers (aged 10–19 years) face higher risks of eclampsia, puerperal endometritis and systemic infections than women aged 20–24 years, and babies of adolescent mothers face higher risks of low birth weight, preterm birth and severe neonatal condition. By Christy Mae Che-es