In a random sample of British-born women from a deprived inner London borough who were expecting their first baby, 31% were teenagers at the time they gave birth. The teenage mothers were compared with a group of older women randomly selected from the sample and both groups were followed up for 6 1/2 years after the birth. The teenage mothers were more likely to have had a deprived background and to have experienced material disadvantage. Despite this, they and their children did as well as the older women on a wide variety of measures of physical and mental health. A comparison of the teenagers with another sample of women who did poorly (those who had been brought up in care) suggests that the lack of an adverse result amongst the teenagers was at least in part due to support from the womens' own mothers.