Girls influenced by older pregnant sisters, study finds

TEENAGE pregnancy could be “contagious” and caught by girls influenced by their elder sisters who have children while young, new research suggests.

A team studied the records of thousands of women and their families over decades and found that those with elder sisters who had children in their teenage years were twice as likely to do the same as those without.

The research showed that although there is evidence that better education of women leads to lower teenage pregnancy rates, in families with teenage mothers the chances of a younger girl having a child in her teens doubled from one in five to two in five.