Adolescent pregnancy

Angela is 15 years old and pregnant. She reflects, "I'm 3 months-pregnant. This could ruin my whole life. I've made all of these plans for the future and now they are down the drain. I don't: have anybody to talk to about my problem. I can't talk to my parents. There is no way they can understand." Pregnant ado­lescents were once practically invisible and unmentionable, bur yesterday's secret has become today's national dilemma.

They are of different ethnic groups and from different places, but their circumstances have a distressing sameness. Each year more than 1 million American teenagers become pregnant, 4 out of 5 of them unmarried. Like Angela, many become pregnant in their early or middle adolescent years, 30,000 of them under the age of 15. In all, this means that 1 of every 10 adolescent females in the United States becomes preg­nant each year, with 8 of the 10 pregnancies being unintended. As one 17-year-old Los Angeles mother of a 1-year-old boy said, "We are children having children." The only bright spot in the adolescent pregnancy statistics is that the adolescent pregnancy rate, after increasing during the 1970s, has leveled off and may even be beginning to decline.

The adolescent pregnancy rate in the United States is the highest of any in the Western world. It is more than twice the rate in England, France, or Canada; almost three times the rate in Sweden; and seven times the rate in the Netherlands. Although American adolescents are no more sexually active than their counterparts in these other nations, they are many times more likely to become pregnant.

Adolescent pregnancy is a complex American problem, one that strikes many nerves. The subject of adolescent pregnancy touches on many explosive social issues: the battle over abortion rights, contraceptives and the delicate question of whether ado­lescents should have easy access to them, and the perennially touchy subject of sex education in the public schools.

Dramatic changes involving sexual attitudes and social morals have swept through American culture in the last three decades. Adolescents actually gave birth at a higher rate in 1957 than they do today, but that was a time of early marriage, when almost 25 percent of 18- and 19-year-olds were married. The overwhelm­ing majority of births to adolescent mothers in the 1950s occurred within a marriage and mainly involved females 17 years of age and older. Two or three decades ago, if an unwed adolescent girl be­came pregnant, in most instances her parents swiftly married her off in a shotgun wedding. If marriage was impractical, the girl would discreetly disappear, the child would be put up for adop­tion, and the predicament would never be discussed again. Abortion was not an option for most adolescent females until 1973, when the Supreme Court ruled it could not be outlawed.

In today's world of adolescent pregnancies, a different sce­nario unfolds. If the girl does not choose to have an abortion (45 percent of pregnant adolescent girls do), she usually keeps the baby and raises it without the traditional involvement of mar­riage. With the stigma of illegitimacy largely absent, girls are less likely to give up their babies for adoption. Fewer than 5 percent do, compared with about 35 percent in the early 1960s. However, although the stigma of illegitimacy has waned, the lives of most pregnant teenagers are anything but rosy.

The consequences of our nation's high adolescent preg­nancy rate are of great concern. Pregnancy in adolescence increases the health risks of both the child and the mother. Infants born to adolescent mothers are more likely to have low birthweights (a prominent cause of infant mortality), as well as neurological problems and childhood illnesses. Adolescent mothers often drop out of school, fail to gain employment, and become dependent on welfare. Although many adolescent mothers resume their ed­ucation later in life, they generally do not catch up with women who postpone childbearing. In the National Longitudinal Survey of Work Experience of Youth, it was found that only half of the women 20 to 26 years old who first gave birth at age 17 had completed high school by their twen­ties. The percentage was even lower for those who gave birth at a younger age. By contrast, among females who waited until age 20 to have a baby, more than 90 percent had obtained a high school education. Among the younger adolescent mothers, almost half had obtained a general equivalency diploma (GED), which does not often open up good employment opportunities.

These educational deficits have negative consequences for the young women themselves and for their children. Adolescent parents are more likely than those who delay childbearing to have low-paying, low-status jobs or to be umemployed. The mean family income of White females who give birth before age 17 is approximately half that of families in which the mother delays birth until her mid- or late twenties.

Serious, extensive efforts need to be developed to help pregnant adolescents and young mothers enhance their educa­tional and occupational opportunities. Adolescent mothers also need extensive help in obtaining competent day care and in planning for the future. Experts recommend that, to reduce the high rate of teen pregnancy, adolescents need improved sex-education and family-planning information, greater access to contraception, and broad community involvement and support. Another very important consideration, es­pecially for young adolescents, is abstention, which is increas­ingly being included as a theme in sex-education classes.

In Holland and Sweden, as well as in other European countries, sex does not carry the mystery and conflict it does in American society. Holland does not have a mandated sex-education program, but adolescents can obtain contraceptive counseling at government-sponsored clinics for a small fee. The Dutch media also have played an important role in educating the public about sex through frequent broadcasts focused on birth control, abortion, and related matters. Most Dutch ado­lescents do not consider having sex without birth control.

Swedish adolescents are sexually active at an earlier age than American adolescents, and they are exposed to even more ex­plicit sex on television. However, the Swedish National Board of Education has developed a curriculum that ensures that every child in the country, beginning at age 7, will experience a thor­ough grounding in reproductive biology and, by the ages of 10 or 12, will have been introduced to information about various forms of contraceptives. Teachers are expected to handle the subject of sex whenever it becomes relevant, regardless of the subject they are teaching. The idea is to dedramatize and demystify sex so that familiarity will make individuals less vulnerable to unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. American society is not nearly so open about sex education.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-11