Home > Female Problems > Top 20 Ill Effects of Teenage Pregnancy
Posted on July 13, 2010 in Female Problems
Teen pregnancy is a common affair in the United States and in many of the developing countries. In the East, in the rural areas as well as in small towns, girls are married off early. They get pregnant at an early age. In the West also teenagers are sexually active and many get pregnant and get themselves aborted, in case they decide not to marry. Teen marriages have also become common in the West and many youngsters feel that they are mature enough to have a family of their own.
Teenage pregnancy is usually not recommended by medical practitioners. No doubt, teen pregnancies are coming down off late, but United State alone records around 1 million teen pregnancies. Nearly 85% of them are unplanned. In the West pre-marital sex is the norm and naturally girls get pregnant at an early age. In the East, pre-marital sex is a taboo, although girls are married off at an early age, as soon as they attain puberty.
Teenage pregnancy is not good for the mother. Why so?
Why teenage pregnancy is not good?
- Delaying of pre-natal care is a greater risk for teenage mothers as sometimes the pregnant mother would like to keep her pregnancy a secret on account of societal taboo in case she is unmarried.
- Teenage mothers tend to gain less weight during pregnancies, thus causing low birth weight which results in childhood and birth disorders.
- Such pregnancies cause an increase in infant death. i.e. they result in a higher rate of mortality among infants.
- Babies born of low weight have less developed organs, which can cause bleeding in the brain, intestinal problems, and respiratory syndrome.
- Children of teenaged mothers are prone to lower nutrition levels.
- They may also suffer from cognitive problems and overall health is not so good. This would imply that they suffer from lower intellect levels and are unable to comprehend things all that well.
- Children belonging to teenage mothers also suffer from abuse as well as neglect and have lower levels of capacity learning. They tend to fail in school examinations.
- Some of the children born to teenagers tend to be delinquents. In case, the mother is an unmarried teenager, then these children are subjected to ridicule by their peer group.
- Teenager mothers are less educated and therefore they are unable to bring up their child well.
- Lack of experience and immaturity on the part of a teenage mother could mean that the child may suffer from neglect and good care.
- Financially, a teenage mother may not be very well off as her earning capacities are not very high and she is therefore unable to provide adequate facilities to her child in the form of good education and nutrition.
- Parental support may not be there in the upbringing of the child as they may not approve marriage at such an early age.
- Early pregnancy coupled with lower levels of education may prevent a teenage mother from pursuing her career interests.
- The health of the teenager can also be affected due to early pregnancy.
- Early responsibilities in taking care of a child may have its toll on psychological and physical health of the mother.
- Teenage pregnancy and early parenthood may lead to early divorce as the partners may not be able to cope up with responsibilities of parenthood.
- Teenage mothers may face poverty as their earnings are less and they may find it difficult to cope with the economic pressures of bringing up a child.
- In case the teenage mother happens to be a single mother then of course it is much more difficult to ensure that the newborn is taken good care of.
- Unmarried teenage pregnancy is looked down upon in most cultures and there is a lack of support system.
- The teenage mother may not be emotionally prepared for pregnancy.
Teenage pregnancy could result in health complications for the mother as well as the child. Medically, it is not recommended as it is felt that the teenager mother is emotionally less mature and would find it difficult to cope up physically.
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January 13th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
The way you describe teen sexuality in the West makes it sound like teen girls are getting pregnant right and left because they have premarital sex. Teen pregnancy really isn’t all that common in the West. Of all Western countries, the US has the highest teen pregnancy rate (likely due to over-emphasis of abstinence over comprehensive sex ed). Even so, teen pregnancies are less than 1% of all pregnancies, and that includes those that were aborted.
I don’t disagree with any of the points you made… teenage pregnancy is certainly not desirable. But your article made it sound commonplace, when it is in fact quite rare.