Incidents of rape on minors and the rise of casual sex among teenagers are also related concerns as they lead to teen pregnancies. A WHO academic has recently branded unwanted teenage pregnancies following bouts of binge drinking, the ’greatest threat to mankind’, because they contribute to the world’s unsustainable population growth.

• Middle Class Morality

According to college counselors in India, unwanted teen pregnancies and subsequent abortions are caused by middle class parents with a misguided sense of morality. Strict parents refuse to awaken to the fact that when India announced its “open policy” to the world, an increased dose of sexuality came along with the economic prosperity via the entertainment media. Sex is still a dirty word for the older generation and discussing it at home or sex education in school is taboo.

• Too Much, Too Soon

Teenagers who leave home to stay in college hostels or rented rooms, go overboard in exploring their newly found freedom and hence unguarded premarital sex followed by teenage pregnancy are often a sad fallout. Since the Indian society still swears largely by arranged marriages, and also because it is near impossible to get the male partner who impregnated the girl to take responsibility for the teen mother and the child, teenage pregnancies in ‘polite’ circles mostly end in hushed abortions.

• Lack of Sex education

Most Indian teenagers have no prior knowledge of safe sex to deter them from risky sexual behavior.

They do not use any birth control measures like condoms when they have sexual intercourse. A study conducted on 400 college students of Mumbai showed that most of the sexually active girls started worrying about contraceptives only after 6 months of sexual activity.

It is a sad fact that teenagers don’t realize that conception can happen even if actual penetration has not taken place, because the sperm that moves upwards from its presence in the external genital area can cause pregnancy.

Health Consequences

The burden of child bearing and rearing at a very young age leaves a teenager physically and emotionally exhausted. Pregnant teenagers are known to have severe bouts of depression and the kids they raise face health problems as well as social maladjustments

In the developing countries, the absence of a comprehensive healthcare system coupled with social taboo, teen pregnancies lead to a high rate of Infant and Maternal Mortality Rate (IMMR). Fearing social ostracism, parents of teenage pregnant women force them to abort the child, often with the help of quacks or uneducated midwives in unhygienic conditions.

A high rate of perinatal mortality in poor and developing countries, particularly among the rural and urban poor is because the teenaged mother is under-nourished and pregnancy aggravates her already poor condition.

Lack of sufficient nutrition during pregnancy, not only affects the mother; it also affects the growth of the fetus and often leads to Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) babies. Most girls who are already anemic have a rapid depletion of iron in their body during pregnancy. They are mostly housewives and do hard labor in the fields or households and rarely avail maternity services.

Social Consequences

The severe shame and stigmatization, that made pregnant teens feel like they had committed a faux pas, has considerably lessened in recent years in the West. Though teen pregnancy has been made to appear fashionable, the ground reality is, adolescents are mentally unprepared to handle pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood. Almost often the male partner abandons the teenage mother who has to plod through life with her baby, without a decent education or a job.

Sometimes the child delivered by a teenage mother is dropped in dustbins or sewers or left behind in hospitals or temples or at charity homes because of an inadequate social security system. There are innumerable true life stories, often adapted in movies, to show how these abandoned children almost always experience an abused childhood and grow up to be anti-social elements. Pro-life organizations have stepped in to stem the rot and offer to take care of the teenaged pregnant mother till she delivers the baby and then arrange for the child’s adoption.

Prevention holds the key

A US survey suggests that “abstinence only” programs launched initially to curb teenage pregnancy have fallen short; so, comprehensive sex education, including discussion of birth control may help reduce the phenomenon. Statistical data gleaned from a study of more than 1,700 unmarried, heterosexual teens between 15 and 19 years old showed that teenagers who received comprehensive sex education “were 60 percent less likely to report becoming pregnant or impregnating someone than those who received no sex education.”

Increase in ‘moral policing’ whether it is at home, colleges or a public place has only proved to aggravate the issue. Continued sex education at home and in schools, beginning from the pre-teen stage, making adolescents understand their body at the first level and later stressing the role of abstinence and contraceptive methods like the use of condoms is a healthy option.

• “Growing Up” program

The “Growing Up” program, done by the Federation of Obstetric & Gynecological Societies of India (FOGSI) in partnership with Johnson & Johnson attempts to educate schoolgirls on menstruation, its myths and hygiene, the anatomy and functioning of the reproductive system, the value of good nutrition and exercise, problems of drug, alcohol and tobacco abuse, and sexual abuse. The program has reached over 12 lakh girls in more than 50 cities all over India in the last 5 years.

• Sex Education: At home, in schools:

Adequate guidance from responsible adults is by far the best means to prevent teenage pregnancy. Recent researches have shown that an on going sex education imparted by parents to their children, beginning even before the adolescent stage, helps them to get a clear sense of what their parents’ values are, and bonds parents and children together as they openly discuss about sex.

• Saying ‘NO’

It is important to teach girls the consequences of hiding a pregnancy from elders until it is too late. With adequate female education, teenage girls can be made to understand that they need not consent to sex, if only to please their male companions. The ball is in their court, more often than not, with the exception of rape.

The recently released Hollywood movie Juno, projects a smart, white, middle class sixteen-year-old girl who decides against abortion, choosing to have a baby and an open adoption.

Rave reviews that the movie got don’t mitigate the fact that pregnancy has a negative impact on a teenager’s education, consequently on their future, the future of the child they beget and the future of the human society on the whole. Freedom of expression comes with a huge responsibility and not everyone appreciates this fact in our society.

Source-Medindia
THILAKA RAVI/L