ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on more comprehensive measures of health and on medical care utilization and expenditures. The overall proportion of children in excellent health is clearly lower for children whose mothers were teens at first birth than for those whose mother never gave birth as a teenager. The pattern of utilization of medical providers provides clear evidence that children born to mothers who never gave birth as a teen have greater use in terms of visits to medical care providers. The children of teenage mothers tend to be in poorer health than are the children of older mothers. In addition, although the children of teen mothers visit medical providers less frequently and have lower total medical expenses, more of the expenses they do incur are paid by others in society than is the case among children of nonteen mothers, both proportionately and absolutely.
