The Prevention of Teen Pregnancy

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Recommended: An introduction on prevention of teen pregnancy

Approximately one million teens get pregnant and give birth every year in the United States. Eighty percent of those births are to unmarried teens (ProQuest). There are serious consequences for teen pregnancy for the child as well as for the mother. The opportunity to a bright future dwindles down with such a high responsibility; a child. Many teens who end up pregnant do not finish high school and are less likely even consider going to college. Another effect of teen pregnancy is that both mother and child become apt to health issues. Infants are more likely to suffer from low birth weight and other health problems. Most teens do not have health insurance therefore it becomes harder to provide adequate healthcare for themselves and their babies. Not only are children of teen parents more likely to be unhealthy physically but sometimes emotionally as well. A teen cannot provide the fostering environment that a baby needs to develop. Although teen pregnancy rates declined throughout the 1990s, a 3 percent jump in births to teen mothers between 2005 and 2006 raised alarm that sex education programs and campaigns to reduce teen motherhood were failing (ProQuest). Various methods of contraceptives and the righteous yet difficult choice of abstinence are among possible solutions Preventing teen pregnancy is an issue in the United States of utmost importance and society as a whole must convince teens in a more innovative , extreme way and they must push forward now.
As a result of teen pregnancies mothers and fathers are having to work extra hard to have an optimistic future. School is no longer the first priority in teenager’s lives after giving birth. Only 51 percent of teen mothers earn a high school diploma before age 22, compare...

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...thers,” Fact Sheet #2010-01, Child Trends, January 2010, www.childtrends.org.

40. “Socio-Economic and Family Characteristics of Teen Childbearing,” The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, September 2009, www.TheNationalCampaign.org.

26. Elizabeth Terry-Humen, Jennifer Manlove and Kristin A. Moore, “Playing Catch-Up: How Children Born to Teen Mothers Fare,” The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy/Child Trends, January 2005.

. Quoted in Pauline Anderson, “Distress Combined With Poverty Increases Risk for Teen Pregnancy,” Medscape Medical News online, July 31, 2009, www.medscape.com.

ProQuest Staff. "Topic Overview: Birth Control." ProQuest LLC. 2013: n.pag. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 25 Nov 2013.
ProQuest Staff. "Teenage Pregnancy Timeline." Leading Issues Timelines. 2013: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 25 Nov 2013.

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