Teenage Pregnancy
"Over one million teenage girls become pregnant each year. In the next 24 hours, about 3,312 girls will become pregnant. In addition, 43% of all adolescents become pregnant before the age of 20. These are incredible statistics when you consider that there are only 31 million females. The United States has the highest adolescent pregnancy rate in the developed world. As statistics show one in nine women between the ages of 15 through 19 become pregnant each year. Also, every 26 seconds a teenage girl becomes pregnant and every 56 seconds a child of a teenage mother is born."
A child needs a nurturing and stable environment in order to prosper and grow. A child born to a single teenage mother is much less likely to succeed and have decreased cognitive skills. Often times a teenage mother may be too self-absorbed with her voyage of personal discovery to be able to meet the needs of her child. Having been thrust into premature adulthood, she cannot possibly confront life and the challenges of parenthood with maturity and responsibility. Therefore it can be assumed that a child born to a single teenage mother is more at risk for emotional, cognitive and other such problems than the child of a mature, adult mother. Sometimes single teenage mothers have adequate support systems for raising a child. In these cases, their parents often provide a home, financial support and childcare. Some school districts provide special programs for teen parents which include instruction in careers and parenting experience in daycare setting where they learn how to care for their child's needs; these experiences give the mother social support as well. Unfortunately, these situations are more the exception than the rule. A single...
... middle of paper ...
...ing a teenager unhampered by the responsibility of a child. In addition, she cannot prepare her child for adulthood because she has not yet reached it herself.
Besides the emotional problems, there are also physical problems for a teenage mother. A teenage mother is more at risk of pregnancy complications such as premature or prolonged labor, anemia and high blood pressure. These risks are even greater for teens who are less than 15 years old. Nine percent of teenage mothers have low-birth weight babies. Low-birth weight babies are much more likely to grow up with cognitive, emotional, and physical complications than fully developed babies.
To conclude, Teenage pregnancies lead to a decrease in cognitive, social, and emotional development in children. In addition to the baby stagnating developmentally, the teenage mother is unable to continue to mature as well.
First off, an unplanned pregnancy has physical effects on a teen. The abdominal area will enlarge and in effect, there will be weight gain. This causes teens to buy totally new wardrobes. In addition there are effects that aren’t as visual. Pregnant women may experience exhaustion and weariness. Furthermore, a change in appetite may be experienced.
Teenage parents are more likely to be impoverished and mentally unstable compared to other individuals who postpone having children. Compared to adult mothers...
Teen pregnancy, in my opinion, is awful. I feel that young women should not be having children at such a young age. I feel that these teenagers that are having babies are children themselves, and do not know how to take care of them as well as an older, more mature person might.
As times continually change, it is inevitable that statistics will change as well. For each student that fails to graduate from high school, another statistic comes about. An American epidemic that forever seems to be looming on the horizon is the issue of teenage parenting and pregnancies. According to an article pertaining to teen pregnancies compiled from teenhelp.com, the United States has been deemed the leading nation for teenage pregnancies in the Western industrialized world. Due to this statistic, it is important to evaluate what can be done to set up teenage parents for success, as well as what can be done for children born in to young families. In an article on teenage parenting compiled by Linda Mangel, it is said that nearly seventy percent of teenage mothers do not complete their secondary education, and because of this, it becomes evident that a solution is crucial. Secondary schools would benefit from considering the implementation of daycare systems in order to increase the graduation rate for teen parents.
Furthermore, there are major health issues surrounding teenage pregnancy. For one, teen mothers are two to six times more likely to have low birth-weight babies, compared to mothers above twenty years of age. This is because teen mothers are often still growing themselves, and physically cannot let the baby grow and develop. Such low birth-weights lead to higher risks of new-born health problems, undevelo...
Studies show that within the last seven years there has been a dramatic drop in the number of teen pregnancies. Teen pregnancy is best known as, the act of getting pregnant between the ages of fifteen and nineteen. Teen pregnancy does not come with much of a history. In the past, (mostly in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s) it was common for girls to be married between the ages of fourteen and sixteen and give birth not long after. Some girls were having babies as young as thirteen and fourteen years old! During the times that young girls would bear children and be married so young, college and education was not an important factor. As a young girl you learned how to take care of your house, farm, laundry, crops, animals, husband, and children. The father was your main source of income. Obviously things in our time are very different. Over the years a growing importance for education and making a living on your own has become crucial to many women. It was no longer important to have children so soon, but to learn to be a strong, educated, and independent woman. Even now as time has gone by, the image of being a pregnant teenage girl has been glorified solely by media. It becomes less important to get an education so you can get a good job and be able to raise a child and give them a good life, and more important to get pregnant and get a chance to be worshiped nationally on t.v. for being pregnant and making all of your money through fame.
The Feminist Women’s Health Center explain that teenagers who are sexually active who does not use any contraception has a 90 percent chance of becoming pregnant within the first 12 months of being sexually active. Teens also become pregnant when contraceptive methods, such as birth control pills and condoms fail. In those groups of teens who become pregnant, more than one-third obtain an abortion, a forceful termination of the pregnancy through the removal of the embryo or fetus from the uterus. (Welton)
Teenage girls often get pregnant and do not know the first step in becoming a mother. Normally, when a teenage girl gets pregnant, she is less likely to attend college according to “Women Issues” by Linda Lowen. Some mothers are not even sure who their baby’s father is and many babies get aborted. The majority of single teen mothers are living in poverty. “Almost all our teen mothers are low-income, poorly educated and low-skilled.” (CNN) One third of mothers actually have a college degree and 23.2% are unemployed. (www.singlemotherguide.com) People under the age of eighteen are still developing and are not ready to be
Teen pregnancy, it’s one of the growing problems in today’s society. Teens today have more problems than ever, and in many cases the parents mistake signs of the problems for mere puberty phase. Beginning problem, which often trigger the others, seem to be families. Deeply religious families are most often heavily strict, and that prevents the teenagers to be informed about real life and what are they getting into. When that kind of person gets in a situation where his or her peers are more experienced then them, the outcome is a pressure. During the puberty the teenagers, especially males, are having problems with controlling their needs. It is easy to get pregnant for today’s teenagers, because they face many unbearable problems.
One major effect of teen pregnancy is that the child may be raised by a single parent. While most girls are looking for love and acceptance in sex, many guys are looking for the mere pleasure and are not planning on becoming a teen father. The pressures of high school and hanging out with friends may be overwhelming for some teens, so they just leave. Raising a child as teen is difficult, but raising a child alone would be almost impossible.
Though the teen birth rate has declined to its lowest levels since data collection began, the United States still has the highest teen birth rate in the industrialized world. Roughly, one in four girls will become pregnant at least once by their 20th birthday. In addition, young people ages 15 to 24 represent 25 percent of the sexually active population, but acquire half of all new STIs.
...due to increasing uncertainty about the future. Fears of having the baby are prevalent as the teen becomes confused on the impact of the baby towards her own life and future dreams. In their lifespan development, delaying their education is necessary as they cannot hold on to both the education and the pregnancy. The depression developed is due to lack of effective handling of the emotions created by the pregnancy (Carlson, 2009).
“In 2012, there were 29.4 births for every 1,000 adolescent females ages 15-19, or 305,420 babies born to females in this age group” (Hamilton). Teenage pregnancies were once regarded as normal. Women were once expected to be married and have a family at a young age to ensure lifelong stability. In modern times, teenage pregnancy is considered a taboo subject. MTV began a reality television show in 2009 that popularized pregnancy amongst adolescent females. There are many factors that add to the risk of becoming pregnant during adolescent years, but glamorizing the subject has shown to be the top reason.
D. Teenage Pregnancies associate with social issues , such as lower educational levels and higher rates of Poverty. This happens because when they are pregnant they drop out of school and just worry about their bab...