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Teen Pregnancy

Teen pregnancy is not just a rare virus that has recently sprung up and will someday disappear due to some type of cure. Adolescent pregnancy has plagued our country for over three centuries, but it is only more recently that we have noticed its growth and severe impact on many aspects of society.
The social change that leads to this visibility is not only based on a change in sexual behaviors, but it also is based on a change in the nature of adolescence. These changes begin with the decline of the average age of menarche. The average age for menarche in girls ten years ago was 14.2; this age has dropped by two years since then. The average age for menarche today is 12.2. This statistic suggests that since girls are capable of having children at younger ages they are also more apt to have sex at a younger age.

The social changes that effects these statistics deal with the raising of the average age of marriage, standard attitudes towards marriage as a sacred institution, and economic shifts which have led to a need for longer educational careers. These changes have produced pockets of urban poverty where education is often not valued or taken seriously.

Unfortunately, the need for higher education is reflected in the fact that only at levels after high school has enrollment increased in recent years, and only in the late teens are whites more likely than blacks to enroll in an educational institution. Due to the demands of the economy many young people are dependent on their parents for a longer peroid of time which has left some groups without access to the economic options that allow them to prepare for the future.
Despite the fact that the teen birth rate is slowly falling, there are still an estimated one million teen pregnancies in the United States alone. About 85% of these pregnancies are unplanned, which in any population can increase the risk for problems. The biggest risk for teen mothers is delaying prenatal care or worse, 7.2% received no...