Introduction: In Australia each year over 250,000 women give birth, 6% (15,000) of those births are to teenage women and most of those mothers are aged 15 to 19 years. Despite this, little information is currently available on Australian teenage mothers and none is available about the men who fathered their infants.

Objective: This study aimed to develop a snapshot image of teenage mothers and the men who fathered their infants.

Design: A quantitative survey approach.

Participants: A convenience sample of teenage mothers aged 15 to 19 years were invited to participate. All resided in one regional center in Queensland, Australia and only Gillick competent teenage mothers, namely those able to understand the implications of their actions, were recruited.

Results: Of the thirty mothers who participated; just over half reported using contraceptives, less than a third used condoms to protect themselves from STDs and the majority said their pregnancy was unplanned. Despite this, more than half breast-fed their infants and an overwhelming majority were satisfied with motherhood. On average the fathers were almost four years older than the mothers were, most fathers were not teenagers themselves and few were resident fathers following the birth of the baby. Exploratory analysis suggests that the fathers were significantly older than the teenage mothers were.

Discussion: Although these preliminary results are similar to those reported in the American literature further research is needed to confirm if the findings presented are representative of teenage mothers in Australia. Although practitioners are encouraged to continue to educate young women about appropriate and safer sexual practices, it is also important that they re-think current pregnancy prevention strategies and safer sex education programs.

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