Teen Pregnancy Research Paper

According to CDC (Center for disease control), teen pregnancy is on the rise based on 2017 records of about 200,000 babies were born to women aged between 15-19 years old. Teen births create an increase in money for taxpayers and states to payout. $16,000 dollars per teen birth is how much it costs the government to provide economic and medical support while a teen mom is pregnant and for the first year of child birth. Unplanned pregnancies cost taxpayers 21 billion each year, part of that amount is due to the public spending 4.

4 billion on teen births. If teens are participating in intercourse, it is very important to use protection such as condoms and birth control.

Condoms are effective at preventing pregnancy but are not 100%, condoms are 85% effective, which means about 15 out of 100 people will still become pregnant. Birth control is used by 62% of the female population, birth control pills are 91% effective, when all pills are taken according to prescribed. Teen pregnancy is an important issue that needs to be more understood by the people of society. 30% of the population of pregnant girls say being pregnant was the main reason they left school. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, only 51% of teen moms earn a high school diploma compared to 89% of female students who did not give birth as a teen. 

Many teen moms, choose to drop out when close to end of pregnancy. Some public schools are now offering daycare programs that can help the dropout rates of teens. On the other side of the argument, many public schools and community members believe that day care only encourages irresponsible sexual choices.

Unfortunately, most teen mothers experience a number of negative outcomes associated with becoming a parent at an early age. There are long term concerns related with teenage motherhood, including poor academic achievement, lower occupational attainment, poor mental health, socioeconomic hardship, and welfare dependence.

To understand a Teen moms experience we must start with care, empathy and sympathy. Empathy is the ability to feel or relate to what another person is experiencing on a mental, social, physical level. Sympathy is the caring aspect, but empathy is having the ability to experience feelings of another person.

An effective way to feel empathy for someone, is by putting aside your viewpoint, and try to see the situation from their eyes, also listening and support is important because the more you learn about someone’s experience the better, people can try to relate to what someone else is going through. Social life of a teen mom can be hard, all their friends might be dating, partying or just able to go out and have fun, whereas the new mom to be, can’t participate in activities most teens can because she has the new responsibility of a new baby.

Some teen moms can experience social alienation from their peers by being judged or talked about. Teen moms are also bullied, which can bring anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and drug/ alcohol use. Pregnant teens use drugs and alcohol to self-medicate to deal with depression and anxiety, which is bad because using any drugs or alcohol during pregnancy can be detrimental to the health of the baby, as well as the mother. Around 65% of pregnant teens say they used one or more substances during the pregnancy, nearly double the rate of non-pregnant teens.

The physical aspects a new teen mom could experience are Voice changes due to more estrogen and progesterone being produced, Ankle swelling because the gaining of weight, Women can feel warmer and sweat in large quantities during pregnancy because there is an increased metabolic rate and increased sweat gland activity. Going through all of this and still try to balance daily life, is defiantly not going to be easy.

In High school, social life is an importance to a young teen, it’s a time to have fun and be free. Imagine being a young teen who wants to experience partying, hanging with friends, dating and school dances, but suddenly have the responsibility of a baby to take care of, it can be overwhelming. We can learn about teen moms through magazines such as seventeen and teen vogue.

An article in teen vogue called” Pregnant at prom: My life as a teen mom” suggest that there Is more to it being a young mom than what you see on TV. In 2015 as part of National day to prevent teen pregnancy, they interviewed Kirstin a young teen mom to hear her story. Kirsten describes her relationship with her boyfriend as the classic high school romance: her being a cheerleader and him a football player. Even though Kirsten’s boyfriend didn’t want to date her anymore, because he found out she was pregnant.

Kirsten still went to Prom because she wanted to show everybody that she wasn’t ashamed of her baby and wasn’t going to give up on life just because she was pregnant. I think this article shows that Young teen moms can still have fun and enjoy life. Another outlet to get a better understanding of a teen moms point of view is YouTube. Around 1.3 billion people use YouTube to gain information on a certain topic. YouTube has many videos relating to teen pregnancies stories, and allows people to not just hear one story but many women’s stories of all races and backgrounds.

Did you like this example?

349

15