One in five women who die in childbirth is under age 20

Santo Domingo.– Nearly 20 percent of teenage Dominican girls have been pregnant sometime and one out of every five women who die in childbirth is a girl under age 20.

According to Dominican Vice President Margarita Cedeño de Fernandez, the nation’s future depends on Dominican youth and is threatened by the problem of teenage pregnancies and their consequences, which are death in childbirth of mother and infant and the perpetuation of poverty.

The vice presidency, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Public Health Ministry launched a project Thursday aimed at reducing teen pregnancies in the country.