The Negative Effects of Teen Pregnancy On the Teen, Society, and the Family When teen’s get pregnant do they really know the consequences and the changes that it causes their bodies to go through? Most teens go into their pregnancy blind to the fact that they are helping another human being be brought into this world. I have a best friend, who is more like my sister, that had a baby in high school. She struggled to graduate. She ended up having to drop out because it became too much for her to handle. She had to give up numerous things along with school. She had to give up marching band, softball, and hanging out with most of her friends. She was an honor roll student and she always seemed to “never make mistakes”. She was crushed when …show more content…
With this issue the teens tend to earn less money than those who have graduated and have went to college. This causes the children of the teen parent’s to struggle to keep up with their school peers. Teen mothers face the struggle of earning less money than those who waited to have their babies at a later time. It is found that teen mom’s, who have had babies at the age of seventeen or younger, make twenty-eight thousand dollars less after fifteen years of giving birth. In the next generation, the daughters of the teen mothers are three times more likely to become teen mothers themselves. Also in this generation, only forty percent of teen mothers who give birth at the age of seventeen or earlier actually finish high school; and twenty three percent of the younger moms go on to retain a GED ( A Baby Changes Everything: The True Cost of Teen Pregnancy’s …show more content…
Sometimes teen moms decide to not go to college and focus more on the baby or their plans to get married. Teen pregnancy statistics state that only one third of teen moms can even acquire the high school diploma and only a few get a college degree. The government plan welfare schemes to take care of teen mothers and their children. The low-qualified mother cannot get a good job and she completely depends on the state to overcome the financial distress. The annual expenses to fund the teen pregnancies cost around seven billion dollars. The government has to spend money on public assistance, child health care, and foster care to facilitate proper raising of the child. The teen mothers who do not receive proper financial support from her parents or her friends have to face a severe financial crunch. She has to face extreme difficulty to buy basic items for her newborn baby such as clothing and baby care products. Due to the lack of social support, the mother will suffer from huge emotional crisis due to lack of social support. She will deal with severe emotional and mental breakdowns that trigger the onset of unusual behavior like suicide attempts or attempting self-abortion. Many studies have concluded that teenage pregnancy directly affects teenage drug addiction rates ( 11 Negative Side Effects of Teen Pregnancy On
Teenagers who become mothers have harsh prospects for the future. Teenagers obtaining abortions are 20% and girls under 15 accounts for 1.2%. They are much more likely to leave of school; receive insufficient prenatal care; rely on public assistance to raise a child; develop health problems; or en...
Being a parent at an early age makes lives of those teens and also their parents a struggle. Dreams of a great future goes down the drain and saving money for clothes and those one shoes you wanted, does also. Most parents already realize what all comes with taking care of a baby by experience however, when their child becomes pregnant as a teen, life is filled with so much disappointment. Expenses of a baby are extremely high and many of the parents of the pregnant teens have to help financially. The average cost of caring for a child in its first year of life is $10,158 (Rivera). When taking care of a baby you have to deal with the cost of formula, baby wipes, diapers, clothing and housing plus the things you need to take care of yourself comfortably adds up, which pregnant teens than rely on their parents for their assistance to take care of the baby. Than the parents who can’t afford another responsibility began to stress witch than stresses out the teens. Two out of three teen mothers never graduate from high school. Education is extremely important and without one, many teens will not get far. Without and education, it’s harder to get a job that will pay what is needed to support a family. According to many a baby born now will cost a middle-class family $170,460 to raise through age 17. Many teens are not in the right place in their career, if they
Imagine juggling the stress of graduating high school and the stress of embracing parenthood at the same time. “In 2009, six pregnant teens allowed MTV to film their pregnancies in the hopes that youngsters watching the resultant show--16 and Pregnant-- would learn from their mistakes and wait to start families” (Dockterman 1). This is the reality for many teens today. According to the March of Dimes, about three in ten teenage girls become pregnant before the age of twenty. (Slocum 1). MTV hosts many different tv shows like Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant. In broadcasting the lifestyles of young teenage mothers, these shows also allow others to see the struggles that the young teen mothers face preparing for and caring for a baby. While many
Furthermore, the Gale Student Resource Teen Pregnancy article notes that “teen pregnancy results in billions of dollars of lost tax revenue, increased healthcare and foster care costs, increased incarceration rates and more.” Point often overlooked, the financial loss teen pregnancies cause to our nation is very drastic, it’s quite astonishing many belittle its potential upshot. With this is mind, people must begin to ask themselves; why are many involved in vices, why do incarceration rates keep on rising? The answer to this cannot be summed up only in one word or activity, many factors- of which teen pregnancies are included- are involved. The rate of the neglect of children born to teen mothers is very prominent. Children who are neglected
In America, one million teenagers get pregnant every year (National Abortion Federation, 2003). Of these pregnancies, 78% are unplanned because these teenagers start having sex at a very young age and are unaware of ways to prevent pregnancies. Thirty-five percent of the pregnant teenagers chose to abort, as they fear that the consequences of the pregnancy might have significant effects on their lives. The problems that come with teenage pregnancies include dropping out of school, receiving inadequate prenatal care, developing health problems, relying on public assistance to raise a child, and probably divorcing their partners. In most states, the law allows pregnant teenagers to take their babies for adoption without consulting their parents.
Sally just found out she is pregnant. She is scared and alone. Sally's family has rejected her and she has no way to provide for the child she is bearing. Is this the proper way to treat a teen that is pregnant? The answer is no, we should not stop the financial and emotional support of pregnant teens but in the same sense we should not increase the financial support. Who is to say that the baby should suffer from the choices the mother made? It is important that throughout the pregnancy a teen has an adult to look up to and ask for help. This will insure the mothers health and reduce stresses during pregnancy and the babies health during and after pregnancy.
Teen pregnancy is a major issue in society today. In 2010, an estimated 614,400 U.S. teenagers became pregnant, approximately 89,300 had miscarriages, and 157,500 had legal abortions. Teens are having unprotected sex without knowing the consequences of the choices that the are making. Teens believe that sex is something new that they can try, so they can be popular like their peers. These accusations are wrong, having unprotected sex has major consequences, and by having unprotected sex these teens could be changing their lives forever. Who is to fault for these teen pregnancies? Is in the parents fault, the teens fault or is it our communities fault all together? I believe providing more information and awareness about teen pregnancy in our schools and community will reduce the number of teen pregnancies.
The topic of teen pregnancy has been studied in a variety of areas, but much of the research focuses on the teen mother. The actions of teen’s attitude and decision to have unprotected sex or engaging in a sexually activity affects more than themselves, but the public as a whole. Teen’s action have financial consequences for the country as it increases the cost to care for teens based on their inability to be self-sufficient. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (NCPTP) (2005) reports that teenage pregnancy cost taxpayers $9.1 billion in 2004 alone. The cost included $1.9 billion in increased public sector health care costs, and $2.3 billion in increased child welfare costs.
Teen marriage is commonly associated with low education, because, “women who marry before the age nineteen are fifty percent more likely to drop out of high school,” (Dahl, 2010). Similarly, fewer than two percent of teens who are engaged in marriage graduate from college. This is an effect caused by the women having fulfill her brand new responsibilities of a wife and mother. With this knowledge, it can be linked that high school drop outs do not meet the requirements of standard minimum wage jobs; therefore, teens in marriage tend to have jobs that pay below minimum wage or not have jobs at all. This does nothing but drive the poverty and unemployment rate. Low education and low wages increases the poverty rate and the amount of children receiving state assistance, which ultimately damages society. Consequently, teen marriage should be seen as crude because of the strain it puts on society and the teens
The Disruption from school affect the future life of teenage mothers as having a low education cause the chance of getting a job to be low this results in poor economic status(Macleod ;1990).It has been found that the teenage mothers has to face the reality that she is the only one who provide care to her child. It has also been found that the family of the teenage mother way of living affects her education process. The teenage that lives in a family with strong academic background tend to continue schooling compared to mature mother have low academic level (Kerlman 1993:555).The teenage mother also do drop out of school due to rejection from their surroundings at school this make it difficult for the teenage mother to be willing to go back to school in such circumstances (Camarena et al; 1998&Smith Battle; 2007; Yardte
In America, 3 in 10 teenage girls become pregnant before the age of twenty. That is nearly 250,000 teen pregnancies every year in the U.S alone, that is awful. An estimated seventy percent of pregnant teens drop out of some type of school. Only half of those young women have jobs, half of 250,000 woman, that is a lot! More than fifty percent of teenage mothers do not even graduate from high school. It is truly a shame. The reasons for these teen moms dropping out of school are because of physical problems, morning sickness, emotional problems, embarrassment, and a fear of harassment. None of these reasons include getting a job or staying in school for a higher education to benefit themselves or their child. Even worse, after twenty four months with their first child with no education or job, twenty five percent of those teenage mothers get pregnant again. Less than 2 percent of teenage moms earn a college degree by the age of thirty. These teenage parents are living off the government because of the choices they made so young in life and who is paying the government to pay these mothers? Taxpayers who work hard in society with a earned paycheck. It is not fair to the rest of the people to try for an education and a good paying job to realize that part of their taxes getting taken out of their checks go to the programs that the teenage parents are using because they made bad
Each girl has different outcomes for her and her baby. "Differences in these outcomes between teen and older mothers were significant for nearly every racial/ ethnic subgroup, and recent studies suggest that the risk of poor infant health outcomes remains significantly higher among teen mothers even after controlling for other factors." (Kaye, 2012) Teen pregnancy can have different outcomes that normal aged pregnancy do not tend to have very often. "Infants born to teen mothers were 17% more likely to be preterm and 25% more likely to be born low-birthweight compared to infants born to older mothers." (Kaye, 2012) Teen mothers have higher risks than older mothers do because of health and development. Most common risks for the baby is prematurity, diseases, development, etc. The mothers have different choices that come about when deciding whether or not they want to keep their baby. "More of those teens who do have sex use contraception effectively; and many of those teens who become pregnant have abortions." (Farber, 2014) These young girls are faced with a big decisions on whether they are going to keep their baby. Once they find out they are pregnant, some girls have abortions but others keep the baby. They also have the choice of adoption, which is the least common decision. Teenagers that are pregnant face difficult obstacles that they have to go through during their pregnancy. Some girls face abuse which can harm the baby. "Death from violence is the second leading cause of death during pregnancy for teens, and is higher in teens than in any other group." (Vorvick, 2011) The teen mothers get abused from a family member or a boyfriend. The girls start to feel that they are alone and neglected, when they need support the most. Abuse can harm not only the mother but also the baby, greatly. Good care is required to have a healthy
A number of teens do not want to become pregnant, although some are not opposed and other has ambivalent attitudes (Bruckner, Martin, & Bearman, 2004, p. 535-557). Therefore having a healthy understanding of factors associated with a desire for pregnancy among teens, health care providers may better predict the most at risk teens. Many teenagers from the age of 15-19 carry mixed feelings concerning childbirth. Although the optimistic teens increase the risk to unprotected sex, and some were negative against the spectrum to protect against early pregnancy. A careful details study on attitudes indicates a small number of adolescents embraced pregnancy in the future; a large group of teenagers is unsure about becoming pregnant.
Teen Pregnancy is when a person less than 20 years old has a child. 273,105 babies were born to women aged 15-19 in 2013. There was a birth rate of 26.5 percent of babies per 1000 girls in this age group in 2013 (Teen Pregnancy in the United States par.1).The rate has never been this low and it’s dropped 10% since 2012 (Teen Pregnancy in the United States par.1) Public health and significant health issues have a huge impact on teen pregnancy. African American and Hispanic teens account for 57% of teen pregnancy. Caucasian Americans have the lowest percentage of teen pregnancy (Disparities in Teen Birth Rates par.2). Only 50% of teen moms get their high school diploma by age 22 instead of 90% of women who don’t have children in their teenage years (The Importance of Prevention par 2.). Diapers, formula, clothes, and other baby items are extremely expensive. Children might look cute, but they cost a lot of money. You have to pay for doctors’ visits and other expenses. Then trying to take care of a baby, work, and go to school is a lot of one person. Yes, I know adults do it, but we are talking about people who haven’t even finished growing yet themselves. Trying to study with a crying baby isn’t an enjoyable
Teenage parenthood is by no means a new social phenomenon. Historically, women have tended to begin childbearing during their teens and early twenties. During the past two decades the U. S. teenage birthrate has actually declined (Polit and others, 1982). In the late 1950s, 90 out of 1000 women under 20 gave birth as compared with 52 out of 1000 in 1978. Several factors contribute to the current attention focused on teenage pregnancy and parenthood.