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Pregnancy among teens
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The Causes of Teen Pregnancy
There are many different situations that teenagers get themselves involved in that can lead to teen pregnancy. Many teenagers do not understand the risks that are involved with having sex. Teenagers today are growing up in a culture in which peers, TV and motion pictures, music, and magazines often transmit either covert or overt messages that unmarried sexual relationships (specifically those involving teenagers) are common, accepted, and at times expected, behaviors. To find out what the real causes of teen pregnancy are, I interviewed a few teenagers about their experiences and encounters with pregnancy. If teens were more educated and less influenced by the media teen pregnancy would decrease.
One of the biggest issues in teenage relationships today is trust. The issue is not about the lack of trust but instead too much trust. Many teenage girls tend to trust their boyfriends/sexual partners way too much. I interviewed Kaci and 18 year old college student and she had a lot to say about trust issues.
"My boyfriend Scott and I had not been going out very long but we had known each other for five years. Because we had known each other so long, I completely trusted him. After all he had never really done anything significant enough to break my trust. We started having sex about four months into our relationship, but we always made sure we had a condom because I was not going to have unprotected sex. One night he came over and we started fooling around, almost immediately I got up and grabbed a condom and gave it to him and I thought he had put it on. Then we started fooling around a little bit more and eventually had sex. Later that night after he left I went back in my room and o...
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...e about the consequences of sex, then maybe they would think before having sex at such a young age. In society it seems like everyone blames parents for teen pregnancy because they did not raise their children properly. Society may be right in sometimes blaming the parents but media has a much larger influence on teens. Many teens don't listen to their parents instead they look to movies, television, and music to learn about life. As long as the media continues to make movies and music that enforce sexual behavior, more and more teens will become sexually active and teen pregnancies will rise. Something needs to be done about these immediate causes of pregnancy, otherwise teen will never understand how serious sex and pregnancy is.
Works Cited
The National Campaign To Prevent Teen Pregnancy, . Teen Pregnancy
Prevention. Alan Guttmacher Institute. 15 Apr. 2005
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... is the direct effect of teens and young adults not being educated on the things that come with sex and the consequences of their actions. Teens need sex education because the knowledge will give them an insight on the subject and help them think about the proper precautions to take in order to be a responsible person insuring that they use the right contraception and/or abstinence in order for them not to have children as a teen. Other factors play into why teens become pregnant as well. In the results for my interviews, parent/child relationships should be established and upheld as a relationship that is strictly parent and child. Teens who do not have a true parent/parents in their lives to care about the important thing that contribute to the child’s well being such a becoming pregnant at a young age, tend to make decisions that are not healthy in their lives.
Red and blue lights are flashing and the noise of the ambulance impels everyone to a point where they have to look outside and observe the situation, as if a mystical force was compelling them. From what they can see, the paramedic is holding a tiny hand telling her to hold on. As the stretcher rolls by, the onlookers notice a huge lump, or ball as a few may say, under the pallid cotton covers. What they also take note of is that the pregnant woman is not a woman at all, but in fact a teenager. As some are astounded that a child is being born from a child, others possibly will look at it as a “blessing in disguise.” The issue of teenage pregnancy is affecting our society in innumerable ways and has become one of our top social issues of all time. “The latest estimates show that approximately 1 million teens become pregnant every year” (East, Felice, and Associates 1). With this high number of teenage pregnancy, it is no wonder that many authors try to exemplify this common subject matter. Katrina L. Burchett, author of Choices, accurately and effectively depicts teenage pregnancy among female adolescents living with domestic issues.
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.
The District of Columbia is the 23rd most population city in the United States with a population of 658,893 (Census). According to UNICEF, teen pregnancy is defined as “A teenage girl, usually within the ages of 13-19, becoming pregnant” ((Link 1). Nationally in the United States, there has been a steady decline of teen pregnancy within the past decade. However, it is not occurring in the District of Columbia, specifically Southeast DC (Ward 7 and 8) which includes areas such as: Lincoln Heights, Twining, Anacostia and Woodland. As of 2011, DC was ranked number nine in the nation for the highest rate of teen pregnancy. For the total amount of births, only 908 were from young women who were below the age of 20 in Washington DC. About 879 were from young women that were around high school ages 15-19. Specifically, Southeast DC is a low-income area, with approximately ¼ of teen mothers going on welfare within three years after their child’s birth (Link 2). As of 2012, out of the 790 births from teenage mothers, more than half, or 457 of the births mainly occurred in the Southeast DC area (Link4). This area has been plagued through various social determinants of health. This includes having repeated cycles of poverty, lack of comprehensive sexual education, especially in regards to contraception and a lot of violence occurring as a result of crimes. Ward 7 has approximately 95% of its citizens being Black and 2.3% of their citizens are Hispanic(Link 5). While in Ward 8 have about 94% of their citizens that are Black and 1.8% are Hispanic. Between both wards, about 63% of households including both Blacks and Hispanics are living below the federal poverty line and about 37% of births from the 2010 census were from teenage mothers. Abo...
America has one of the largest pregnancy rates in teens in the whole world (“Sexuality, Contraception, and the Media”). Pregnant teens have to make many hard choices. They must decided to keep the baby or not., and to continue on with school. or not. Teens moms can lose everything they’ve worked for after one bad decision. Sex is in teens lives because of media influence.
It has been said that teens across the world have not been receiving enough sex education. This has led to many issues with teens becoming pregnant, which most of the time is unanticipated. Teenage pregnancy has been a social problem throughout the world for a number of decades now. Many studies have been completed in several countries that pertain to the amount of teens and the types of teens who are becoming pregnant. Rates among teens had been declining for some time, but are starting to take a turn and increase. This is still a significant social problem, though some people do not perceive it like it is.
Teen pregnancy has become an epidemic in the United States alone. Today, more than half of all teenagers report having had sexual intercourse at least once before leaving high school (Glazer, 1993). Each year, almost 750,000 U.S. women, aged 15–19 become pregnant (Guttmacher Institute, 2011).
Although teachers are meant to teach this, a lot of teenagers will not understand or may just dismiss the matter and will learn from television or other teenagers and may be misled in to believing certain things about the matter e.g. The hit television soap ? Coronation Street? had a story line involving a teenage girl who got pregnant and her life turned out fine with no disadvantages. Although some girls may believe this can happen, it is very unlikely. I also feel that parents should not have to bear this burden as it may be embarrassing or uncomfortable explaining this to a
Sex before marriage has always been a major issue. Teen pregnancy seems to double yearly: with no sign of stopping. Some teens use contraceptives and birth control incorrectly. They think pregnancy just can’t happen to them. In a lot of cases their embarrassed to buy protection or just simply unsure of how to use them. Many unplanned pregnancies happen beca...
The concept of comprehensive social intervention has been defined as the process of identifying social problems in an attempt to eradicate them. In looking at the broad range of social characteristics and the behavior associated with teen pregnancy, it is obvious that the emphases placed on the effort to recognize and alleviate teen pregnancy can be celebrated through the effectiveness of education, family planning, and abstinence. However, the attempt to analyze and deal with the cause-and-effect relationship with teen pregnancy is an attempt in understanding the social world itself. In 2006, statistics show that there was a significant increase in teen pregnancy after a decade long decrease. The potential for understanding this increase motivates us to look beyond simple explanations for cause-and-effect behavior and to look at what interactions may be occurring between variables that result in specific behaviors or social conditions. What is it that influences behavior? In looking at teen pregnancy in the realm of the family, it is evident that a large number of family structures have evolved, or perhaps devolved, into a variety of combinations which challenge responsible parents to consistently expose their children to the role models and the types of behaviors that are important for their children to emulate as they mature. People are molded by circumstances and experiences, all of which can positively or negatively influence our behavior.
In conclusion teen pregnancy has hard an effect on society, in many ways. Most teen pregnancies were not planned. CFOS says that about 65% of teen pregnancy's were not even discussed with their sexual partners. All of the other percentage of teen pregnancy's were not planned either, but it had been discussed with the teen's sexual partner at some point in time. Most teens began having sex without knowing the consequences. Teenagers need to take responsibility and remember to keep safe, because there are various ways to prevent teen pregnancy, for example abstinence, sex education, and various types of birth control; because these methods are available children should not be brought into this world mistakenly.
Thesis Statement: Within America, there is a teen pregnancy epidemic across all socioeconomic backgrounds, presenting commonalities as to the causes and ramifications of adolescents emerging as a growing parental population.
“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.
As a matter of fact, one of the most alarming social issues of the 21st century is teenage pregnancy. Teenage pregnancy is commonly known as conception among younger women of the age 13-19 years. In 2008, the media made a lot of story about a 12-year-old boy who impregnated a girl in UK. Astonishingly, the case was not as seldom as many thought. Evidently, in 2008, there where four births with fathers at the age of 13 years (ONS, 2008).
When you think of teen pregnancy, you probably think that there isn’t a positive thing you could say about it. Actually, there is one big thing people can get out of teen pregnancy, better education about sex and pregnancy. There are many things that contribute to this issue, shows like sixteen and Pregnant and Teen Mom are glamorizing teen pregnancy, which is actually a big issue and the blame should be placed on the parents and media.