Tips for Preventing Teen Pregnancy

Despite us living in a sexually enlightened age, there are still too many unplanned teenage pregnancies. Of course a fourteen-year-old being pregnant is very different from a nineteen-year-old, but they are still both classed as teenagers so the statistics include girls at both ends of the age scale. At the age of nineteen women is fully grown and physically developed and could possibly be married, or have been in a stable relationship for some years. But even so, when you consider we are now all living longer, at the tender age of 19 a woman’s life is still in its infancy. For some teenagers just beyond puberty, life can be difficult. In fact, most teens experience some challenges and issues during their school years. It may be difficulties with social relationships (of the same or different sex), challenges with working out who they are, what they want to do in life, what and who they like. Dealing with physical changes and desires can be overwhelming for some taking up a great deal of their time and energy. Bringing a baby into the picture could add to their stress and worries. Many teens experiment not only with sex, but with alcohol and drugs. Making their own decisions about what is right for them and they grow in maturity. Restricting their teen lifestyle to care for a baby during and after pregnancy may not come easily. Having a baby, or being pregnant and giving a baby away for adoption, is a major life-changing milestone at any age, but pregnancy in the teenage years can cause problems which are directly related to the mum’s lack of worldly experience as well as her physical condition. Some teenage girls are so scared to tell anyone they are pregnant that they put off going for antenatal check-ups for too long. Pre natal checks are vitally important in those early weeks. They could also be eating a poor take-away-style diet which is bad for mum and baby. Anaemia (low iron levels in the blood) is more common among teenage mums as is high blood pressure (hypertension) and pre-eclampsia. Pregnant teenagers who have had an active sex life, maybe with more than one partner are at risk of having STDs such as Chlamydia and HIV. Untreated these can be harmful to mum and baby. The harmful effects of STDs in babies may include stillbirth, low birth weight, hepatitis, conjunctivitis, pneumonia, meningitis, blindness, deafness, chronic liver disease, or cirrhosis. While it is difficult for parents to know what their teenage sons and daughters are up to all the time, making sure they have a good knowledge about how to PREVENT pregnancy, as well as how to cope with pregnancy is a good idea. Talk to your teenagers about contraceptives before they get sexually active and also talk to them about the dangers of an unhealthy pregnancy and the risks to the baby. A short conversation now could save years of heartache later on.