What can be said about teenage
pregnancy when it comes to public health policy and education? Is the solution
to encourage safe-sex, preventative measures, and open discussion? Is there a
healthy measure in accepting teen pregnancy as a societal norm and put funding
into supporting the health of the mother and child? Is there any hope in
abstinence only education? Evidence is gathering on the impact of teen
pregnancy, both on the individual level and the populous level, and that
evidence is suggesting both good and bad news.
The Center for Disease Control and
Prevention states that, “In 2012, a total of 305,388 babies were born to women
aged 15–19 years, for a live birth rate of 29.4 per 1,000 women in this age
group. This is a record low for U.S. teens in this age group, and a drop of 6%
from 2011.” (CDC). Although these statistics have gone down from previous years
they are still way too high considering that we are talking about teenagers.
You have to start somewhere and it is good to see more teens looking for help
when it comes to sexual education. The most documented result of the drop in
teenage pregnancies has come from the use of birth control and how regularly available
it is to teens. Also stated by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention,
“…teens seem to be less sexually active, and more of those who are sexually
active seem to be using birth control than in previous years.”(CDC) Sex will
never be prevented all together from teens but there is many ways to keep it
safe and controllable.
Over
1 million teenage girls become pregnant every year in America. How can this be
the case when we are a very wealthy, and seemingly resourceful country that has
the tools to educate people? The CDC also found that one in 5 teenage
pregnancies is a repeat birth. Much like poverty, teenage pregnancy is cycle
that people can be trapped in. The base of this negative cycle is a lack of
education about the subject. Teens who are not aware of safe sex methods or the
consequences that will follow their actions, are more likely to become
pregnant. Although this situation does not apply to 100% of America’s teens, it
is crucial that it is addressed because it puts teen mothers and their baby's
in danger. Baby's that are the result of a second or third teenage
pregnancy are even more likely to be premature.
Most
teen pregnancies are accidental, but that doesn't mean that teens cannot
educate themselves after conception has taken place. It is important to
keep in mind that when it comes down to it, teen pregnancies are really
children having children. A common reaction of a teen mother is to not
understand that they will be fully responsible for a child and its needs. This
puts their unborn babies at risk of neglect and abuse due to the fact that
their mothers are unsure of what kind of motherly position they are supposed to
take. In the case of a friend or family member getting pregnant at a young age,
they deserve calm and honest counseling, to inform them of options and/or
responsibilities. In order to truly educate teens about their life potential,
it is important not to belittle their feelings and emotions when it comes to
love and sex, but instead to inform them of all possible outcomes.
Realizing
that they are preventable (although traumatic) is not the biggest worry that
teen moms should be thinking about. Economic and social consequences present
early child bearers with a whole new range of things to stress about. This
includes things like young mothers dropping out of school, having no time to
get a job, and there for having fewer opportunities presented to them in life.
"A girl with little or no education has fewer skills and opportunities to
find a job. This can also have an economic cost with a country losing out on
the annual income a young woman would have earned over her lifetime, if she had
not had an early pregnancy." Getting through middle school and high
school, although it may seem like a step that doesn't mean much is a huge push
in the right direction for teens.
The
Stay Teen organization states, "Less than half of teen mothers ever
graduate from high school and fewer than 2% earn a college degree by age
30."(Stay Teen) With this being said the rate for young women to become
educated and get a well-paying job plummets when having a child at a young age.
Personally my (Vicente) mother had my sister at age 19 and was not able to
attend college for the simple fact that she had a baby to take care of. It is a
huge burden on our society when our youth cannot go to college let alone finish
high school.
Research
involving teen pregnancy and education have also shone light on the further
disparities in minorities. Teen Pregnancy
and the Achievement Gap Among Urban Minority Youth (Basch, C. E., 2011) out
lines, “Nonmarital teen births are highly and disproportionately prevalent
among school-aged urban minority youth, and
have a negative impact on educational attainment”(p.614). This study also gave
the bleak statistic that, “Teen mothers are 10-12% less likely to complete high
school and have 14-29% lower odds of attending college”, even if those
percentages stay prevalent, an expanding population of under educated mothers
is bound to have very negative impacts on social infrastructure and further
negative impact on the exponential growth of the youth raised under their care.
Alas, the study further concluded that there is positive momentum in
school-based programs that, “have the potential to help teens acquire the
knowledge and skills needed to postpone sex, practice safer sex, avoid
unintended pregnancy, and, if pregnant, to complete high school and pursue
postsecondary education” (p. 617)
It
is of this group’s opinion that honesty, and an open dialog with teens is the
most promising treatment to alleviating the burden of teen pregnancy, both on
the youth that are subjected to it and the population it effects. A great final
insight to this notion can be illustrated by Media Influences on Social Outcomes: The Impact of MTV’s 16 and
Pregnant on Teen Childbearing (Kearney, M. S. and Levine, P.B., 2014)
states, "We find that 16 and Pregnant led to more searches and tweets
regarding birth control and abortion, and ultimately led to a 5.7 percent
reduction in teen births in the 18 months following its introduction."
Media influences on social outcomes, rather than influencing teens to have sex
these shows showed a drop off in teen pregnancy rates and the promotion of
contraceptives. These shows give teens a reality view of what it is like to be
a mother or a father in their teenage life. Media does not always affect the
youth as negatively as we think.
Group 2:
Brandon Lord
Abby Ryan
Vicente Sarver De Souza
References
Basch, C. E. (2011). Teen pregnancy and the
achievement gap among urban minority youth. Journal
of
School Health, 81(10), 614-618.
Center
for Disease Control and Prevention. (June 25, 2014). The Importance of
Prevention [In 2012… total of 305,388 babies were born
to women aged 15–19 years, for a live birth rate of 29.4 per
1,000 women in this age group… a drop of 6% from 2011]. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/teenpregnancy/
Cummins, J. (September 7, 2012). Causes of Teenage Pregnancy and Ways to
Prevent It. Retrieved from http://www.whattoexpect.com/wom/pregnancy/causes-of-teenage-pregnancy-and-ways-to- prevent-it.aspx
Kearney, M. S., & Levine, P. B. (2014). Media Influences on Social
Outcomes: The Impact of MTV’s 16 and Pregnant on Teen Childbearing (No. w19795). National Bureau of
Economic Research.
Stayteen.org (2014). Teen Pregnancy [Less than
half of teen mothers ever graduate from high school and fewer than 2%
earn a college degree by age 30]. Retrieved from http://stayteen.org/teen- pregnancy
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