PPT Slide
As predicted by life history theory, infants of youngest African-American mothers in this national population were smallest, in association with mothers' age; the relationship was unchanged by trimester prenatal care initiated or marital status.
Results suggest the pregnancies of young African-American mothers were physically affected by a growth/reproductive trade-off of substantial magnitude, sufficiently strong to overcome individual variation in the timing of pubertal development characteristic of this population. 7