Causes of teenage pregnancy

Teenage Pregnancy

Teenage pregnancy is a growing problem in the modern world. Underage women who have not reached legal adulthood are becoming pregnant, dropping out of school, and ending up on welfare in order to be able to support their children.

Lack of Sexual Education

The main cause of teenage pregnancy is the lack of sexual education that comes from parents, school, and society. There are many birth control methods available to teenagers but often they are not taught how to use them or how to deal with peer pressure. Most teenagers do not even know how to say “no” to the pressure of persuasion to have sex.

Teenage pregnancy in developed countries comes outside of marriage and is unplanned. It may carry a social stigma in many communities and cultures. Teenagers may often lack knowledge of conventional methods of preventing pregnancy, or they may be too embarrassed or scared to look for such information. Some of them may even lack access to birth control methods.

Countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States have high teenage pregnancy rates relative to other countries. Although teenage pregnancy can be a positive experience, particularly in the later teenage years, it is associated with a wide range of subsequent adverse health and social outcomes. These associations remain after adjusting for pre-existing social, economic, and health problems. Despite the establishment of a national teenage pregnancy strategy in 1999, teenage birth rates in the UK are the highest in western Europe and conceptions among girls under 16 years of age in England and Wales have increased since 2006.

Ten controlled trials and five qualitative studies were included in this study. Controlled trials evaluated either early childhood interventions or youth development programmes. The overall pooled effect size showed that teenage pregnancy rates were 39% lower among individuals receiving an intervention than in those receiving standard practice or no intervention (relative risk 0.61; 95% confidence interval 0.48 to 0.77).
Three main themes associated with early parenthood emerged from the qualitative studies: dislike of school; poor material circumstances and unhappy childhood; and low expectations for the future.
Comparison of these factors related to teenage pregnancy with the content of the programmes used in the controlled trials indicated that both early childhood interventions and youth development programmes are appropriate strategies for reducing unintended teenage pregnancies.
The programmes aim to promote engagement with school through learning support, ameliorate unhappy childhood through guidance and social support, and raise aspirations through career development and work experience. However, none of these approaches directly tackles all the societal, community, and family level factors that influence young people’s routes to early parenthood.

✓ Fact confirmed: Teenage pregnancy and social disadvantage: systematic review integrating controlled trials and qualitative studies Angela Harden, Ginny Brunton, Adam Fletcher, Ann Oakley; 12 July 2009

Parental Guidance

Parental guidance and supervision play a major role in the prevention of teenage pregnancy. Many parents fail to educate their children about sex. One of the main mistakes parents often make is to insist that their child restrains from sex. It would be much better if parents would be more open with their children and discuss the dangers of sexual involvement. Parental guidance and direction are essential parts of keeping teenage girls from becoming pregnant.

Exploitation

Older men may sometimes take advantage of young girls and make them pregnant. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for young girls to be raped by an older male. Sometimes, victims of rape become impregnated and the rapist is occasionally someone from the family. Girls are most often engaged in relationships with their older brother's or sister’s friends, older neighbors, or family members living near them.

It may begin as a romantic relationship but teenage girls are often being raped when they refuse to have sex with their older boyfriends. Studies show that girls who have suffered sexual abuse at some point in their lives are generally more likely to become pregnant as teenagers.

There are many reasons for teenage pregnancy, ranging from deficiency of parental control, lack of education on safe sex, and pressure made by peers, to sexual violence and rape. On the other hand, with little communication and tutoring, the number of pregnant teenage girls can be considerably reduced.