Teen Pregnancy and Why It Should Be Avoided

Jane Fonda (2019) says, “It’s about time we make the well-being of our young people more important than ideology and politics. As a country, we benefit from investing in their future by investing in teen pregnancy prevention”. Teen pregnancy has long been a worldwide social, economic and educational concern for the developed, developing and underdeveloped countries. Studies on adolescent sexuality and pregnancy are very limited in our country. Therefore, this essay aims to assess the prevalence of teenage pregnancy and its associated factors. In my personal opinion, teen pregnancy should be avoided.

Samuel Mathewos and Aleme Mekuria are both Health Science professors which are working in the Department of public health. This article is mainly listed some of the reasons why teenager got pregnant. There are many reasons due to which teenagers get pregnant. From lack of information about sex and pregnancy to peer pressure, the reason behind why teens get pregnant can be varied. The prevalence of teen pregnancy among school adolescents is high to cause reproductive health and socio-economic challenges to adolescents in the study area. Being 11th and 12th grade student, substance use, not knowing the exact time to take emergency contraceptives, living arrangement and poor parent-daughter interaction were found to be significant predictors of teen pregnancy. Special emphasis particularly in the areas of parent-daughter communication on the issues of sexuality and reproductive health, benefits of contraceptive use, and risk of substance use are recommended.

There are a lot of issues regarding to this topic. And most of them published on either pros or cons. But this scholarly article pays more attention on the reasons of why teens get pregnant. If we know the reason then it is much easier to fix the problem. This article used institution-based, cross-sectional study was conducted from 20-30 March 2014. Systematic sampling technique was used to select a total of 578 students from four schools of the town. Data were collected by trained data collectors using a pre-tested, self-administered structured questionnaire. Analysis was made using SPSS version 20.0 statistical packages. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify the predictors of teen pregnancy. The prevalence of teenage pregnancy among school adolescents of Arba Minch Town was 7.7%. Being grade 11 student and grade 12 students, not knowing the exact time to take emergency contraceptives, substance use living with either of biological parents and poor parent-daughter interaction were found to be significant predictors of teen pregnancy.

This study revealed high level of teen pregnancy among school adolescents of Arba Minch Town. A significant number of adolescent female student were at risk of facing the challenges of teenage pregnancy in the study area. School-based reproductive health education and strong parent-daughter relationships are recommended. And there are some reasons why teen pregnancy should be avoided. First of all, not finishing school. Money and time are two necessary for children. This fact of life often gets in the way of a teenage mother finishing her schooling, which is a major setback for their future as well as their child’s. Secondly, they will lose social life. The most exciting part of being teenager is the all the new and exciting social experiences that you get to have. Having a child means that you can not participate in many of the things that normal, childless, teens would be able to. Last of all, drug or alcohol abuse. Having a child is extremely stressful, especially if you are very young. This stress added to the fact that teenagers are impulsive and often immature, leads to a very high chance of drug or alcohol abuse to take place. So basically these are my main points on why teen pregnancy should be avoided.