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causes to teenage pregnancy
TEENAGE PREGNANCY
underlying causes of teen pregnancy
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Teen Pregnancy
In the United States, approximately 410,000 teens between the ages of 15 - 19 gave birth in the year 2009 (“Vital Signs,” 2011). Although the teen birth rate in the United States during 1991-2009 has declined to its lowest level in the past 70 years, when compared to other developed countries lowest birth rates, the U.S. is still six to nine times higher in teen birth rates (p. 419). In 2006, over 750,000 women became pregnant; the pregnancy rate for women 15-19 years old was 71.5 pregnancies per 1,000 women (Kost, Henshaw, and Carlin, 2010). The live birth rate for 15-19 year old women in 2009 was 39.1 births per 1,000 females; this being the lowest rate ever recorded (“Vital Signs,” 2011).
Teen pregnancy, also known as adolescent pregnancy, is referred to as a women being pregnant and delivering a baby while under the age of 20. As stated in Aretakis (2011), “The causes of teen pregnancy are diverse and affected by changing moral attitudes, sexual codes, and economic circumstances” (p. 769). Additional precursors to adolescent pregnancy include family structure (the attitudes and behavior of the family, partners, and peers); first time menstruation and other biophysical changes; disinterest from school; and risk-taking attitudes and behaviors (Driessnack, 2009). Pregnancy in adolescents occurs in all parts of the country, among all ethnic and religious backgrounds, in public and private schools, and across all socioeconomic classes (Balakas, 2009).
The ideal treatment in teen pregnancy is to make sure that both the mother and fetus progress as expected. To achieve this, early prenatal supervision is strongly suggested throughout the pregnancy, as this results in less harm to both the mother and child (Balak...
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Planned Parenthood Arizona. (2012). Teens and abortion law. Retrieved from http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ppaz/teens-abortion-law-31364.htm
Singh, S., Darroch, J.E., & Frost, J. J. (2001). Socioeconomic disadvantage and adolescent women’s sexual and reproductive behavior: The case of five developed countries. Family Planning Perspectives, 33(6), 251- 258, 289.
Stockert, P.A. (2009). Nutrition. In P. Potter & A. Perry (Eds.), Fundamentals of nursing (7th ed. pp. 1085-1128). St. Louis, MO: Mosby.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2002). Preventing teenage pregnancy. Retrieved from http://www.policyalmanac.org/health/archive/hhs_teenage_pregnancy.shtml
Vital signs: Teen pregnancy--united states, 1991--2009. (2011). MMWR: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 60(13), 414-420. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr
The UNICEF defines adolescent pregnancy as “a teenage girl, usually within the ages of 13-19, becoming pregnant”. Adolescent pregnancy has become a national issue as multiple places all over the world are being affected by this. The nature of this problem is that many teenage girls are having children, and as a result many are dropping out of school, getting low paying jobs, have poor housing situation, and are most likely on some type of welfare. Yet, it does not stop at just the mother the child of the teenage mother will most likely grow up in poverty, without of father, and is proven to be more likely involved with crime, drugs, and alcohol. This issue has various high risk factors, such as single parent homes, sexual abuse, and lack of education. Although, along
According to www.cdc.gov, in 2013, a total of two hundred and seventy-three thousand, one hundred and five babies were born to women fifteen to nineteen years of age. Though this is low for the typical rate of teen- child births, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate is substantially higher than in other western industrialized nations. There are many stories of teen mothers who feel like they have their lives together, and consider their stories “success stories”. What most teens don’t understand, is the difficulties of being a mother, especially at such a young age. Teen pregnancy has more negative outcomes than positive outcomes, as shown by a girl named Haley in her teen pregnancy story. The best way to prevent teen pregnancy is through information
The teen pregnancy rate in the United States is four times higher than the developed European countries, such as France and Germany.3 Latina and black women make up the largest part of teen pregnancy because these groups have highly disproportionate cases of births at the early ages of 13 to 18 years old.3 These groups also face the highest rates of low socioeconomic status and low levels of education which together aggravate the pregnancy problem. An approximated 60% of females live in poverty at the time of childbearing and lack the knowledge or resources to survive economically or prevent yet another pregnancy.2 ...
A common complaint about today’s teenagers is that they don’t have strong morals. People see televisions shows like MTV’s 16 and Pregnant and assume that this is a common theme among teenagers in the United States. But the truth is just the opposite. According to a recent study by the Guttmacher Institute, Teen pregnancy rates are at a 25-year low, and they’re continuing to fall. (Guttmacher). The Boston Globe observed that “In 2010, about 614,000 pregnancies occurred among teens ages 15 to 19…which is about half the 1.3 million pregnancies that occurred in 1990.” (Kotz) A drop off that large in such a relatively short span of time is remarkable. This essay will analyze this trend of declining teen pregnancy, and try to investigate its potential causes.
Teen pregnancy falls into the category of pregnancies in girls age 19 or younger (NIH). Although statistics have shown a decrease, the number of teen pregnancy in the U.S. is still relatively high compared to the rest of the world. Sexual health is one of the top priorities in early adolescence health in the United States. Consequences of having sex at a young age generally results in unsafe sex practices. The consequences can be due to the lack of knowledge about sex education, and access to birth control/contraception (NIH, 2005). Due to the lack of knowledge and access to birth control, adolescents involve in risk taking when they start to explore sexual intimate relationships. Consequences of unsafe sexual behavior include sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy (NIH, 2005). This paper will focus on the majority aspect of pregnancy in adolescent.
Alan Guttmacher Institute. (1999). Teenage pregnancy: Overall trends and state-by-state information. NY: The Alan Guttmacher Institute.
Byers, A. (2000). Teens and pregnancy: a hot issue . New Jersey: Enslow Publishers, Inc.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "Pregnancy and Childbearing Among U.S. Teens." Online. Internet. 29 Mar. 1999. Available
The birth rate among teens in the United States has declined 9% from 2009 to 2010, a historic low among all racial and ethnic groups, with the least being born in 2010; and in 2011 the number of babies born to adolescents aged 15-19 years of age was 329,797 (“Birth Rates for U.S.”, 2012). Although the decline in unwanted and unplanned teen births is on the rise the United States continues to be among the highest of industrialized countries facing this problem. This is a prevailing social concern because of the health risks to these young mothers as well as their babies. Teens at higher risk of becoming pregnant are raised at or below the poverty level by single parents; live in environments that cause high levels of stress (i.e., divorce, sexual psychological and physical abuse); are influenced by peers or family members that are sexually active; and lack parental guidance that would direct them to be responsible and self-controlled.
Teen pregnancy in our society has started to become a normal occurrence. It has been stated that “[t]een pregnancy is rated at 11% of all cases of childbirth in the world. Statistics show that 3 in 10 American girls will get pregnant at least once before the age of 20” ("11 Facts About Teen Pregnancy"). Babies born from teen
Second of all, getting pregnant at a young age might be one of the possible child abuse of these young mothers. some teenage pregnancies may result from rape. Most teenagers may expose themselves, unknowingly, to situations where they are sexually abused. They may go to wrong clubs or in unsupervised camps for fun and get raped in the process. Lastly, teenagers tend to experiment with drugs and alcohol, resulting to inability to control impulses. Thus, it is becoming easy for them to engage in unprotected sex. Precisely, when addressing the issue of teenage pregnancy, underlying problems such as peer pressure, parents’ absenteeism, glamorization of pregnancy, and rape must be considered.
During teenage, kids think about themselves that they are big enough to do every thing and to make decisions by them selves and if any body hurt their self-efficacy the chances of negative reaction increase a lot. Parents should create environment of friendliness so that kids do not feel frustrated. Because when kids build up in an environment where they don’t get love from home and they get frustrated and in search of love they satisfy their frustration from outside. That mostly results in drug addiction, teenage pregnancy, smoking or other bad habits. Both far above the ground levels of parental administration and close relations linking teenagers and their parents were related to soon after time of teenager sexual commotion. Parental support of adolescent autonomy has been associated with later initiation of sexual intercourse (Hayes, 1987). Parents should help their kids to prevent from teenage pregnancy by increasing interaction with them. Parents should be friendly enough with kids and by building up understanding kids are more likely to obey their parents. Teenage pregnancy destroys self-esteem of kids. Sex education is essential in preventing unplanned pregnancies among the teenage population. Parents can help prevent teenage pregnancy by providing guidance to them about sexuality, contraception, and the risks and responsibilities of intimate relationships and pregnancy. Sex, sexuality, contraception and reproduction do not give teens the green light to have sex, as some parents fear (Christopher, 1999). An open, honest dialogue can prevent misinformation and unnecessary risk-taking. In developing countries, there are no specific services or programs to help teen parents. Today, students and teachers report a heavy emphas...
Tsai and Wong (2003) acknowledged many risks factors, which is a contributor to teen pregnancy. The influence involves numerous sexual partners, drug abuse, unprotected sex, use of or lack of contraceptives, poor attendance, school performance, and lack of family support, etc. Teen pregnancy is a main issue in every health care system, and affects a young girl’s ...
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.
Teen pregnancy is the term used in reference to those young ladies who get pregnant before attainment of legal adulthood that is between 13-18 years age group. It is a circumstance under which a teenager becomes pregnant unintentionally affecting her life-span development. Teen pregnancy is a prevalent factor among many teenage women especially in their 16th to 19th birthday. Pregnant teenagers are today faced with many obstetrics problems similar to those of the women in their age gap of 20s and 30s. Additional medical concerns are experienced by pregnant teenagers in the developing countries especially women aged 14 or younger. A wide range of teenage pregnancy is unplanned and therefore more risk factors are experienced especially the socioeconomic risks. In the developing countries, teen pregnancies lead to social issues and life complications due to early motherhood. The associated social issues include lower educational levels, increasingly poverty level and other poor life outcomes. In the developed countries, teenage pregnancy occurs outside of marriage, thus leads to the development of social stigma in variety of cultures and communities (Carlson, 2009).