Teenage pregnancy is a worldwide issue that has increased over the past decades. A WHO survey found that 7.3 million girls under 18 become pregnant each year, with highest rates in the UK and US and lowest in Japan and South Korea. Factors contributing to teen pregnancy include poverty, lack of parenting and sex education. Impacts include lower education achievement, health risks for mother and child, and increased likelihood of continuing the cycle of teen pregnancy. In the Philippines specifically, surveys found the highest teen pregnancy rates in Southeast Asia, with 24 babies born daily to teen mothers. The Cordillera region has the highest national rate, attributed partly to social media use and substance abuse among youth. Overall, more research is needed to
Teenage pregnancy is a worldwide issue that has increased over the past decades. A WHO survey found that 7.3 million girls under 18 become pregnant each year, with highest rates in the UK and US and lowest in Japan and South Korea. Factors contributing to teen pregnancy include poverty, lack of parenting and sex education. Impacts include lower education achievement, health risks for mother and child, and increased likelihood of continuing the cycle of teen pregnancy. In the Philippines specifically, surveys found the highest teen pregnancy rates in Southeast Asia, with 24 babies born daily to teen mothers. The Cordillera region has the highest national rate, attributed partly to social media use and substance abuse among youth. Overall, more research is needed to
Teenage pregnancy is a worldwide issue that has increased over the past decades. A WHO survey found that 7.3 million girls under 18 become pregnant each year, with highest rates in the UK and US and lowest in Japan and South Korea. Factors contributing to teen pregnancy include poverty, lack of parenting and sex education. Impacts include lower education achievement, health risks for mother and child, and increased likelihood of continuing the cycle of teen pregnancy. In the Philippines specifically, surveys found the highest teen pregnancy rates in Southeast Asia, with 24 babies born daily to teen mothers. The Cordillera region has the highest national rate, attributed partly to social media use and substance abuse among youth. Overall, more research is needed to
Teenage pregnancy is a worldwide issue that has increased over the past decades. A WHO survey found that 7.3 million girls under 18 become pregnant each year, with highest rates in the UK and US and lowest in Japan and South Korea. Factors contributing to teen pregnancy include poverty, lack of parenting and sex education. Impacts include lower education achievement, health risks for mother and child, and increased likelihood of continuing the cycle of teen pregnancy. In the Philippines specifically, surveys found the highest teen pregnancy rates in Southeast Asia, with 24 babies born daily to teen mothers. The Cordillera region has the highest national rate, attributed partly to social media use and substance abuse among youth. Overall, more research is needed to
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The Truth About Teenage Pregnancy:
Its Effect and Impact to the Youth
Ablasi, Cheryl D. Comom, Johanissi M. Talipnao, Reynalhyn G.
GBDAIS Extension Taba-ao, Kapangan, Benguet February 28, 2018
1 The Truth About Teenage Pregnancy: Its Effect and Impact to the Youth
Over the past few decades, teenage pregnancy has become a public concern which has generated a great deal of attention in every community. It is also been known as adolescent pregnancy where pregnancy takes place among females under the age 20. A female can become pregnant from sexual intercourse after she has begun to ovulate. Nowadays, ovulation occurs among females in their younger years which takes place around the age of 12 or 13 which means pregnancy is possible with this ages.With regards to these, there was a strong agreement that teenage pregnancy rate is on the increase and remain as a significant social problem since it is also been linked to an array of other social issues such as welfare dependency, child health and well being, out of wedlock birth, fatherhood responsibility, chid abuse and neglect and school drop-out. (Torivillas, 2013).
In relation to this, the Word Health Organization (WHO) conducted a survey in
2014 on nulliparous pregnant women less than 20 years of age with a live singleton birth to access the rate of teenage pregnancy among teenagers worldwide and discover the factors and impact of it. Based on the result, it was discovered that 7.3 million girls become pregnant before they turn 18 every year and 2.5 million among these girls aged 15 and below. It also turned out that among all nations, the highest teen pregnancy rates are in United Kingdom and USA and lowest in Japan and South Korea. Among the prominent factors is poverty for about one-half of all teen pregnancies occurvin 30% most deprived families. Morever, 85% of teen pregnancies are unplanned and 11-20% of these pregnancies are reported to occur as direct result of rape. As results, schooling suffers, as about 50% of teen mothers get a highschool diploma by age 22, compared with 90% of girls who did not give birth. It also shows that pregnancy and childbirth complications are the second highest cause of death for girls aged 15 to 19 and 3 million girls undergo unsafe abortions every year. Also, if the child survives, they are more likely to be born prematurely, do poor in school, and about 30%more likely to become teen parents as well.
On the other hand, teenage pregnancy is also among the numerous societal problem faced by the Philippines. Among six associations of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) reported that on 2014, Philippines ranked the highest rate in teenage pregnancy based on their conducted survey in Southeast Asian. Overall, the result shows that the Philippines is the only country in the Asia Pacific region where the rate of teenage pregnancy rose
2 over two decades. In relation to this, a study by Natividad, et al. (2013) entitled "Predictors on Early Childhood Bearing" was conducted from different universities in the country wherein the respondents aged 15 to 19 was randomly selected which aims to determine the cause and predictors on early motherhood. Accordingly, one in ten young Filipino women aged 15 to 19 has begun childbearing: 8 percent are already mothers and another 2 percent are pregnant with their fist child. It also shows that statistically, 24 babies are delivered by teenage mothers every hour which proves a high teenage pregnancy rate in the country.
Based on the study, it also showed that parenting styles and lack of education and information greatly affect the youth in their reproductive health behaviors. It indicates that teenagers with parents who have not set clear standards for their children are more likely to be young mothers or impregnate their partners. The absence of parent is also a great factor because their physical presence plays a vital role in guiding their children. Furthermore, teenagers who have not attained college education or higher degrees are the usual young mothers.
Going beyond, Calimquim (2016) also carried out a study regarding teenage pregnancy among private and public schools in the country with the age bracket 13 to 19 which aims to determine the teenage pregnancy rate among regions in the country and provide prominent factors that has a great contribution on the said issue. As a result, Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) tops the teen pregnancies in the whole country with a percentage of 18. 4 teen fertility rate. Although it showed that in the first semester of 2016, teenage pregnancy in Baguio City decreased, it still persist in many localities like Benguet, Ifugao, Mt. Province and most especially in Apayao having an average of 50-55 pregnancies of teeners aged 16-19 years old yearly. Among the prominent factors of this phenomena is the use of social media and practice of vices such as drinking as well as expirementing on drugs. Accordingly, the use of social media specifically facebook initiates relationship and meet-up among youths which leads to teenage pregnancy. Moreover, sexual and non-sexual behaviors like smoking (44%), drinking (69%) and illegal drug using were high among 15 to 20 year old Cordilleran youth with its rates surpassing the national rate thus, making CAR as the number one contributor to the said social problem in the country.
Overall, teenage pregnancy is a woldwide problem and is observe to every
community. As presented by the facts and informations above, it has many factors such as poverty, lack of parenting styles , inadequate information and education about teenage pregnancy, social media usage and vices. On the other side, it has also great
3 impacts among youths such drop-out in school, child birth complications, premature child, abortion, child abuse and neglect. Therefore, teenage pregnancy is one social problem that requires attention not only locally but also nationally and worlwide considering its increasing rate yearly and implications to both teen parents and the child.
On the other way around, though the authors presented their studies and surveys with certain goals, criteria, data collection, well-based facts and information on the factors and impacts of teenage pregnancy among teenagers, it would have been better if it also includes the impact of teenage pregnancy among parents, along the locality and the country as well for a greater value of study. Moreover, the authors must also have provided their specific data colection procedure not by just stating that it is a survey or a study. Such on the report of WHO and UNPF, its better if it specifically presented what method they used in the survey such as distributing questionnaires, online surveys and others. Also, as observe ,each particular place of the study has a particular results especially the factors.Therefore, further studies should be done from international broken down to national and local for a better findings and used for effective recommendations. As for the research of Calimquim et. al. (2016), it is much better if it also include the records of the provinces and municipalities in the Cordillera. These should be considered on the following researches and surveys to be conducted in the future for a better findings. Furthermore, though it's good that the researches provided the background, factors and impact of teenage pregnancy among youths, further studies should still be conducted with larger age bracket,more natural settings with different populations and different data collection with particular methods.It would also be great if future research studies replicate these findings but includes actions made to solve this issue and its effectivity.
4 References
Natividad, E.C. , De Guzman, C.M., Sagalla, F.B. (2013). Predictors of Early
Childhood Bearing. Journal of Early Motherhood, 7, 16-19.
United Nations Population Fund (2014). Southeast Asian Youth Development
Bulletin.Retrieved from https://plan-international.org/sexual-health/teenage- pregnancy?gclid=CjOKCQiA2snUBRDfARIsAIGfpqHqay35NVx
Calimquim, A. C. (2016). Maternal Youth and Pregnancy Outcomes In the
Philippines. Moston Press, USA.
World Health Organization. (2014). Statistical Records on Teenage Pregnancies and
Impacts. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs364/en/
Torivilas, H. M. (2013). Key Ingredient In Positive Adolescent Parenting. The Journal
