Free Nursing Essays - Adolescent Teenage Pregnancy
Researchers concur that pregnancy is a time of dramatic transition. A first-time pregnancy heralds a change from the status of woman to that of mother. The significance of this change is reflected in the terminology used to describe pregnancy; words such as "metamorphosis" and "transformation" are commonly applied. Some develop mentalists have even referred to the pregnancy period as a time of crisis during which the woman undergoes not only psychological upheaval, but a revision of her sense of self and identity. While these changes are noteworthy for the adult woman confronting pregnancy, their effect is frequently magnified when the expectant mother is an adolescent.
Adolescent pregnancy is an issue that warrants the attention of develop-mentalists. The problem not only burdens individual teenagers and their newborn babies, but its widespread prevalence affects all strata of society and has begun to take a toll on welfare resources. Statistics help place the problem in perspective. Teenage pregnancy rates in the U.S. are at the highest level among Western nations. An estimated 96 per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 19 become pregnant each year (Paul, 1999). However, the reasons are not fully understood. Some proposed explanations include lack of knowledge about birth control, cultural differences that place esteem on adolescent motherhood, the teenager's sense of insecurity or impulsivity, dependency needs, and attempts to assert independence. (Paul, 1999)
The issue of adolescent pregnancy has further complications. Pregnant or parenting teenagers are more likely to drop out of school, receive less educational attainment, and exhibit lower educational achievement than their peers. They also are more likely to live in poverty, receive welfare, and have lower income. Moreover, adolescent mothers have higher rates of behavioral and psychological problems.(Svetlana et al, 2002)
Babies born to adolescent mothers have lower birth weights and are at risk for various health problems. Children of adolescent mothers are likely to live in less stimulating environments (Moore et al., 1997) and are more likely to be at risk for abuse and neglect than children born to older mothers. Becker-Lausen and Rickel (1995) suggested that a mother's age at first birth was a risk factor for child neglect.
For pregnant and parenting teenagers with serious emotional disturbance (SED), these concerns are magnified by multiple symptoms of psychological disorders including mood swings, panic, distress, aggressive behavior, and substance use. According to federal statutes (Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975), children with SED have an emotional disturbance or behavioral disorder that (a) is exhibited over a long period of time, (b) is considered severe by those evaluating it, and (c) negatively affects students' educational performance.
Adolescents with SED have been found to be at higher risk for poor academic performance and dropping out of school. They have had higher absenteeism from school and much lower GPAs than adolescents from the general population. (Svetlana et al, 2002)They are less likely to have been employed or married, and their arrest rate is much higher than the rates of youths in the general population. Young people with SED are also at much higher risk for co morbid substance use disorder, and they have higher prevalence rates for sexual intercourse compared with students from the general population. Girls with SED are significantly more likely to be mothers than their non disabled peers. As Wagner also noted, the high rate of parenting among girls with SED is cause for concern because of the emotional challenges of having SED and the strains of single parenting. (Svetlana et al, 2002)
Males rightly note that a teenage pregnancy is becoming less and less a factor in determining whether an adolescent graduates from high school. However, there is evidence to suggest that even those adolescent mothers who do receive high school diplomas are less likely to attend college than are women who delay childbearing, and college graduates on average earn 40% more in wages over the course of their lifetimes than those with only a high school education. Moreover, given that increasingly greater amounts of education are needed in order to compete successfully in this postindustrial age, the value of a high school diploma has diminished significantly over the last 30 years. (Stephen J. Caldas, 1994) This economic reality makes the increasing teenage birthrate between 1985 and 1990 all the more alarming.
Males goes on to state that the myriad negative effects that have been associated with teenage pregnancy - health problems, deficient child-rearing practices, and abbreviated educations - are more a consequence of pervasive teenage family poverty than of the mother's age. Stephen J. Caldas (1994) have demonstrated that, apart from the effect of background factors - including poverty - there are still statistically significant and quantitatively important negative effects of early childbearing on the family size, economic well-being, and high school graduation rate of teenage mothers.
However, it is not just the economic well-being of the mother that is affected. There is strong evidence for the intergenerational transfer of poverty to the children of single-parent families. Given that the attributes "poor" and "single-parent" do a good job of describing the typical teenage family arrangement, the negative effects of early childbearing extend as well to the offspring of teenage mothers.
Regarding the societal costs of teenage childbearing, Males makes the statement that "most of the $16 billion in annual public costs of |teen' pregnancy would occur even if teens delayed childbearing until their twenties." While it is true that there would be public costs associated with childbearing even if no teenagers gave birth, Males' reference to $16 billion is based on the amount spent by just three government programs in 1985. (Stephen J. Caldas, 1994) That figure was estimated to have increased to $21.5 billion by 1989. Adjusting the figures for inflation, I determined that the single-year cost in annual government expenditures on families begun by teenagers increased in real terms by approximately 18% from 1985 to 1989.
Another thing seems certain: there is a great deal of ambivalence among the general public, policy makers, and educators about what role schools should play in sexuality education. This ambivalence often translates into inaction or half-hearted approaches to dealing with the problem. An experience I recently had in a local school system typifies well this ambivalence. (Stephen J. Caldas, 1994)Unfortunately, this ambivalence is not peculiar to this school system but is a nationwide phenomenon. It is evidenced by the inconsistent quality and quantity of sexuality education from one school district to the next.
Clearly, however, there is no such "skittishness" in American popular culture about the pleasures of sex. Consequently, American adolescents are getting wildly conflicting messages. On the one hand, they are continually bombarded with messages in the print media, in films, on television, and in music that sex and sexiness are highly prized American values. On the other hand, they are also likely to pick up the message from school, home, and church that premarital sex is somehow bad or sinful (e.g., "good girls should say no"). (Stephen J. Caldas, 1994)Meanwhile, though schools may dispense information on reproduction - and perhaps even on how to prevent it - they then often fail to encourage sexually active students to use the effective contraceptive techniques they have been taught. Rarer still do schools actually make contraceptives readily available to sexually active adolescents. (Stephen J. Caldas, 1994)
In the end, if we as a society are to make real progress in reducing teenage pregnancy and childbearing and the problems associated with them, then adolescents should not only be told the facts of reproduction and how to use the tools of contraception. They should also be provided with the tools and encouraged to use them if they do decide to engage in sexual intercourse. Moreover, this kind of instruction and public health service should not be provided in isolation from the rest of the school curriculum and after the child has already become sexually active; it should be just one aspect of a total approach to human sexuality that is integrated into the instructional program of the entire span of grades K-12. Anything less will ensure that we continue to have more of the same: piecemeal, disconnected, ineffectual, "basic plumbing" instruction on the one hand, and high teenage pregnancy and birthrates on the other.
References
Becker-Lausen, E., & Rickel, A. (1995). Integration of teen pregnancy and child abuse research: Identifying mediator variables for pregnancy outcome. The Journal of Primary Prevention, 16, 39-53.
Moore, K. A., Morrison, D. R., & Greene, A. D. (1997). Effects on the children born to adolescent mothers. In R. A. Maynard (Ed.), Kids having kids: Economic costs and social consequences of teen pregnancy (pp. 145-180). New York: Urban Institute Press.
Paul V. Trad; Assessing the Patterns That Prevent Teenage Pregnancy, Adolescence, Vol. 34, 1999
Stephen J. Caldas; Teen Pregnancy: Why It Remains a Serious Social, Economic, and Education Problem in the U.S, Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 75, 1994.
Svetlana Yampolskaya, Eric C. Brown, Paul E. Greenbaum; Early Pregnancy among Adolescent Females with Serious Emotional Disturbances: Risk Factors and Outcomes, Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, Vol. 10, 2002.
