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Teen Pregnancy

TEENAGE PREGNANCY

Being a teenage mother can be difficult. Many face prejudice and stamen from the community, their friends and family. In the United States for example, about one million or more teenagers become pregnant each year at the very high expense to their families, themselves, and the society in general. Eighty percent of those births are to unmarried teens. But it is clear that the issue of teenage pregnancy is complicated because of our inconsistent attitudes and behavior. Also, the American popular culture grace sex but ignores the responsibility of being a teenage mother. The talk of early sex is heard at almost everywhere. Kids are even portrayed as sex objects. The word “sex” is used to sell practically everything you can lay your hands on. Things like video games, books, the so-called movies for the under aged, are plastered with sexual comments and pictures that are worse than the x-rated movies. Even their clothing is worse than lingerie. They walk about during the day in their skin-tight, revealing clothes and yet we are surprised at the rate of teenage pregnancy or the increasing number of teenagers who are sexually-active. The only way to actively help these teenagers and their babies is to stop the continuous blame and help them manage the problem because there is so much that the young need to learn about being a mother at such an early stage.
Teenage pregnancy is defined as occurring when a woman at the age of 20 or less gets pregnant. But in the United States, the term usually refers to women younger than 18 years of age. Teenage pregnancy frequently leads to limited future prospects for many teen mothers who are unable to complete high school. Adolescents who have babies are also more prone to health problems and experience a maternal death rate 2.5 times higher than women aged 20-24. Many children born to teenage mothers suffer from low birth weight and other related health problems, with a large proportion of them...