Teen Pregnancy in the United States
Imagine coming to school one day and seeing 39 students pregnant. That’s the statistical reality of teen pregnancy as an estimated 34 in every 1000 students becomes pregnant between the age of 14-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This statistic does not take into account different educational, social, and racial factors. With widely popular television shows such as, "16 and Pregnant" or "Teen Mom", many teens do not fully comprehend the negatives of engaging in sexual activity, and do not realize the possible outcome. Becoming pregnant as a teen is very detrimental to one's education, in the fact that they may have to leave school, lose friends, and become an outcast
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That’s 26 babies per 1000 teens including all ethnic backgrounds. Hispanic and Black teen pregnancy rates are the highest with 40 per every 1000, and Asian are the lowest with 8 for every 1000 (CDC). In more recent years teen pregnancy rates have dropped even further, and “although reasons behind the declines are not clear, more teens may delaying or reducing sexual activity, and more of the teens who are sexually active may be using birth control than in previous years (CDC)”. More and more teens are no longer fully realizing the negatives of engaging in sexual activity. On the other hand, a teen that becomes pregnant may become an outcast and lose their friends, Becoming a social outcast can lead to depression and other mental illnesses. Our generation is more exposed to teen pregnancy as there are TV shows and magazines all about teen pregnancy. Becoming pregnant as a teen is no longer as demonizing as it was for the generation before us, and more and more teens are becoming pregnant at a young age. "Family planning is at an all-time low and teens are engaging in casual sexual activity (Bright)". Parents call for more sexual education, and increased options for teens, to stop teen …show more content…
Teens that become pregnant while still going through high school have a significantly higher dropout rate according to Michael Frank, a professor at Stanford University . Not graduating combined with a garnished wage can seriously stall an individual's growth in the world. The family of a teen mother is burdened by the weight of another child and pour their money into child care and other expenses. Having to care for a child, can influence a teens day so that they no longer have time for school or work. Child care in the United States of America can cost upwards of 10,000 dollars a year which is more than many teens make in all of high school (Diobrat 1). Teens rely on loans or their parents to help them pay for a child. Sexual education in schools is very basic and lacks details and specific courses that teach abstinence only are recommended by parents (Diobrat 3). Abstinence is the practice of not engaging in sexual activity and is the only 100% efficient way to prevent teen pregnancy and the spread of STD's. With abstinence only education, teens are not taught about birth control or other forms of contraceptives. Parents argue that if teens are not given the "OK" for sex, by teaching about contraceptives, they will never wonder about sexual activity and not want to engage in casual
Across America, many teen pregnancy are becoming popular. Many students have been educated on this topic, while other have not. When teens make the faulty decision, they do not know about the consequences that come with it. Consequences end up in having a child, and having a child is a lot of responsibility. Teens tend not to have much responsibility as important as taking care of a child.
One major problem in America’s society today is teen pregnancy rates. In fact, “teen sexual activity, pregnancy, and childbearing are associated with substantial social, economic, and health costs” (Sedgwick). However, this problem is not one without a solution. The rise of teen pregnancy rates can be prevented and reversed by providing better access to birth control for teens, eliminating the negative connotation that accompanies abstinence, and implementing more efficient sex education in public schools.
Teen pregnancy is surprisingly decreasing over the years. According to Farber, “the most recent studies have shown that there has been a decrease in the rate of pregnancies among all teenagers and among sexually active teenagers (16). Although this issue seems is decreasing this is still a problem faced by many teenage girls today. Each year, 7.5 percent of all 15-19 year old women become pregnant (Maynard 1). Not only does this issue affects the pregnant teen but it also affects the economy. Teen pregnancy affects graduation rates. Many teen mothers cite pregnancy as the key reason of them not finishing school. Only 40 percent of teen mothers finish high school (Teen Pregnancy Affects Graduation Rates). The 60 percent of teen mothers
Over the last few decades the rates in teen pregnancy have been a debate; did they rise over the past few years or did they actually decline? Contrary to some doctors and politicians the numbers associated with teen pregnancy have decline over the last couple of years. Although there are still people out there who believe this to be an issue it’s made more of an issue than it actually is. The ads and commercials are set out to scare teen-agers into believing that were at an all time high for this issue, but realistically its actually the exact opposite. Teen pregnancy rates haven’t dropped on there over the course of the years. There are a few major factors that have contributed a great deal to this change. Those changes include but are not limited to: more resources being available to these teenagers to prevent themselves from becoming pregnant, society is more open to talking about this issue as well as the religion and culture change aspect of families today. Despite the beliefs of others, teen pregnancy rates are at an all time low for the first time in decades.
Among many of the preventable diseases and health problems there is one in particular that is rooted deep within my hometown. I am a part of the graduating class of 2013 from Seaside high school, located in a tourist town on the northern Oregon coast, where according to the United States Census Bureau the median income as of 2012 was $24,201 (table 1).I remember in high school there was always a girl I knew who was pregnant, but it was not until recently when I noticed so many of my classmates and friends announcing due dates. According to Medline Plus, adolescent or teen pregnancy can be defined as “pregnancy in girls age 19 or younger” (para. 1). According to the CDC’s “Births: Final Data for 2012” report, for girls between the ages of 15-19 there were 305,388 live births, or 29.4 live births per 1,000 population (para. 1,2). Between the years of 2010 and 2012 there were 39 pregnancies recorded for girls between the ages of 10 and 19 in Seaside, Oregon and for the same time period and age group there were 110 pregnancies in Clatsop County (the county that Seaside resides within) according to the “Oregon Teen Pregnancy Count” (table 1). Teen pregnancy is preventable and yet it is still a major problem, especially in rural counties.
Many believe the children are solely responsible for their carelessness that results in early pregnancy. Looking at this problem more broadly, one can see all of the social changes that influence teen pregnancy. For example, the media promotes sex and relationships. According to the RAND Health researcher, Jeffrey Wasserman, children ages 12-18 who saw the most sex on television were twice as likely to initiate intercourse within the next year as to those who saw the least amount of sex in the media (2017). Many television shows and movies contain sexual scenes, but most of them don’t explain the risks of sexual activity. Moreover, teen pregnancy has become more widely accepted. While many still believe it’s wrong, this problem has become unfortunate but acceptable. With shows like 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom, the mass media even rewards these teenages for their early pregnancies. The acceptance of early pregnancy has increased, but people are still embarrassed to talk about sex to children and teenagers. Teen pregnancy can be prevented, and it starts with a change in
Teenage pregnancy is a new form of epidemic that is sweeping across the nation worldwide. No one can actually point fingers on who is to blame or why this situation has increased in numbers over the past years. As years progress and society changes, people have been adjusting to the fact that teenagers are getting pregnant, and that there is nothing we can do to change it. Although many think that teenagers make mistakes and that pregnancy is an automatic consequence, there is a way to prevent this outcome from happening. By introducing different kinds of sex education programs at an earlier age, the teenage pregnancy rate will decrease. Even though we cannot eliminate the problem, we can educate our teenagers so that this issue can be
"Teen pregnancy in the United States: In 2015, a total of 229,715 babies were born to women aged 15-19 years old, for a birth rate of 22.3 per 1,000 women in this age group. This is another record for U.S. teens and a drop of 8% from 2014. Although reasons for the declines are not totally clear, evidence suggests these declines are due to more teens abstaining from sexual activity, and more teens who are sexually active using birth control than in previous years. Still, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate is substantially higher than in other western industrialized nations, and racial/ethnic and geographic disparities in teen birth rates persist (cdc.gov)." As teenagers (in the United States), we are peer pressured or tempted to try new things. Some teens tend to try out drugs, and alcohol. However, some are having unprotected sex in which, is leads to having babies. This is called, teenage pregnancy. This has caused the United States to create records based off of the statistics and facts given from, researchers across the United States. In order to help prevent teenage pregnancy in the United States, teenagers must understand why, having a baby now isn’t such a smart move on their part.
Pregnant teens face high risks of medical complications as well as disruption in family life and education(Frick, 2007). Teenage girls usually lack the emotional maturity to deal with pregnancy. Choosing to keep the child, deliver it up for adoption, or opt for abortion also adds stress to the family(Frick, 2007).Adolescents who receive information on abstinence and participate in virginity pledge programs have improved outcomes as adults(Frick, 2007). Most participate in less risky behaviors, have
(Introduction) Since the late 1990s teenage pregnancy in the United States has declined. In the United States teenagers become sexually active earlier than those in other countries. The vast majority of teenagers who are sexually active do not use any type of protection. Since this is not being done it allows the rate of unexpected pregnancies to be higher than if protection was being used. Teenagers start early having sexual intercourse for various reasons such as sexual pleasure, intimacy with someone special, or to increase his/her social status. According to Manlove, Steward-Steng, Perterson, Scott & Wildsmith (2013), in the United States five hundred thousand teenage girls between the ages of thirteen to eighteen years of age give birth
In today's society there are many problems that are out of our hands and that we as a nation cannot control. Though some can be solved though some basic steps and principles of government. Teen pregnancy is becoming an over-bearing problem in our world today. There are more teenagers having babies outside of marriage in america than in any other country in the world. This puts a burden on our economy by having more mouths to feed and not enough money or recources to feed them, the teenager having the babys education and even the future education of the baby.It has been proven than women who become pregnant before the age of eighteen rarley go on to graduate high school. Also it has been studied and we found that the child of a teenage mother often has many learning disabilities. The problem of overpopulation is already in our midst. By the year 2050 we expect the population to be
About 727,000 U.S. teenage girls (12,000 of them younger than 15)-an estimated 20 percent of those who had sexual intercourse-became pregnan in the most recently reported year. Three factors heighten the incidence of adolescent pregnancy: effective sex education reaches too few teenagers, convient, low-cost contraceptive services for adolescents are scarce, and many families live in poverty, which encourages young people to take risks without considering the future implications of their behavior. Teenage parents are much more likely to be poor than those that choose to postpone parenthood. The lives of expectant teens, already troubled in many ways, tend to worsen in several aspects after the baby is born. Education is harder to attain, only about 70
Teen pregnancy is a very controversial social issue and the vast majority of Americans consider the outrageous rate of teen pregnancies a severe issue, certainly a problematic occurrence that is believed to be a moral decline in our country. Teenagers are physiologically capable of reproducing but not emotionally or financially prepared to be parents at such a tender age. Through various research studies a plethora of determinants has pin pointed teens unprecedented pregnancies. One cause of this problem is the apparent indication of social separation or disadvantage. Within this issue you would find poverty, single parent households, educational disadvantages on the parents behalf, a lack family/parental support, and unemployment. A child’s educational performance, inappropriate sexual acts, and inferior apprehensions about their futures play a vital role in teen pregnancies as well. Amongst the listed disadvantages the three that take precedent are lacks of family communication, sexual abuse, and poverty. Furthermore, teen mothers do not fit the ideal ideology of the normative scheduling of motherhood, therefore, ultimately resulting in negative consequences for them and society. What needs to be understood is, as to why the numbers of teens are becoming parents at such a vernal age.
The teen pregnancy rate had decreased by the maximum of about 55 percent. Most teen birth rates had also gone down about 64 percent, but yet teen pregnancies and birth rate for teenagers ages 15-19 in the U.S still remains one of the highest comparable countries. Due to parenthood, most of teen moms drop out of school. More than 50% of teen mothers never graduate to get their diploma. Sexually active teens that don’t use any type of protection has a 90 percent chance of becoming pregnant within a year, 84 percent of teen pregnancies are unplanned.
Adolescent pregnancy is defined as pregnancy in girls age nineteen or younger. There are different risk factors for adolescent pregnancy. Besides being young, some of them include: poor school performance and not graduating college, or in most cases high school, lower socio economic status and not being able to take care of themselves let alone another person, and older male partners who do not usually want to be involved in their child’s life, which ends up leaving parents to raise their children on their own. “The reason why teenage pregnancy is an important public health issue is because integrated action across several sectors is needed to help young women avoid unwanted pregnancy and to deal with the consequences of the pregnancy…” (Too Much Too Young? Teenage Pregnancy is a Public Health, Not a Clinical, Problem). Teen pregnancy is also a public health problem because there is only so much that can be done to prevent it from occurring. There is only the complexity of teaching sexual health to teenagers, along with the organization of maternity services to those mothers who decide to carry out their pregnancies the full term, or services for those who decide they want to terminate their pregnancies. Also, public health problem solving includes using surveillance of interventions. Without accurate and appropriate data, public health problems become problematic. Another public health prevention is giving out free or cheap condoms around schools or communities, although