Introduction The negative effects of pregnancy in adolescence on the mother and child health has been well established, however there are still remaining gaps to more studies to explore this cause-effect relation.

Objectives To compare three groups of mothers—adolescents (<20 years) and two composed of ≥20-year-old women classified according to past experience of pregnancy during adolescence—with respect to perinatal care.

Methods A sample of 1681 women was interviewed in two cities during the first trimester of pregnancy, a follow-up sample of 1540 at postpartum and 1434 after 3 months. We conducted crude and adjusted logistic regression analysis for each outcome, with a significance level of 5%.

Results The most disadvantaged conditions were found among the adolescent's mothers and those with a history of pregnancy in adolescence. In comparison with women who hadn't been pregnant in adolescence, they had, respectively, a higher frequency of inadequate pre-natal-care [OR 1.8 and 1.5], no postpartum visit [OR 1.3 and 1.5], no performance of newborn screening test [OR 2.3 and 2.1] and baby's first doctor visit >1-month-old [OR 1.7 and 1.8]. No differences were found regarding breastfeeding at 3-month-old and immunisation. After adjustment for city, educational level and skin colour the association remained statistically significant for pre-natal inadequacy [OR 1.7 and 1.4] and baby's first doctor visit >1-month-old [OR 1.5 and 1.6].

Conclusions Previous and current adolescence pregnancy seems to be a risk factor for inadequate healthcare for both women and its offspring.