Who is Affected by Teen Pregnancy?

Teenage childbearing is associated with negative consequences for the adolescent parents, their children and society. Children born to teenage parents face many challenges. They are more likely to have poorer education, behavioral problems, and health problems throughout their lives compared to children born to older parents.

Most teens get pregnant due to unprotected sex, a lack of maturity and a lack of personal responsibility. Almost all teen pregnancies, around eighty percent of these are unplanned and unexpected. A lack of sex education and contraception being the main reason for it. However, over a quarter of these teenagers choose abortion to get rid of their hardships and social implications of teenage pregnancy on society.

In most of these cases of teenage pregnancy, the biological father abandons the mother and leaves it up to her to take care of the baby. This usually leaves the mother living in poverty and running the risk of imminent destitution. In fact, over eighty percent of teen mother live off of social welfare because they don’t have the right financial income to take care and support the child. Forty percent of teenage mothers are unable to pursue higher education and cannot offer their child a strong financial ground.

Teenagers who get pregnant typically puts their need to pursue education to take care of their child. They even drop out of high school and college and find a job to supplement themselves. Though this seems to be mostly due to the fear of embarrassment, humiliation, and harassment from fellow friends and college mates.

Some of these teenage parents don’t even end up in a good job. Sometimes they don’t even get proper financial support from their parents because of their pregnancy. So they barely have enough to pay for the essential things that their child needs.

Thirty four percent of young teenage mothers never earn a college degree or a high school diploma, and less than two percent of teen mother earn a degree by the time they turn 30. Teenage pregnancy deters increased education and leads to significant amounts of lost earnings which can negatively affect the economy as a whole. The country’s lost earnings are from an increased amount of high school and college dropouts are compounded by the estimated billions of dollars that teenage pregnancies cost taxpayers each year, mainly due to increased public health sector costs.

There are increased risk of medical complications on both the teenage mother and the baby due to teen pregnancy. Some complications from the baby include low birth-weight, blindness, deafness, and respiratory problems. Although advisable, it isn’t always possible for the mother to go for regular prenatal checkups, which only increases the risk of medical complications. A lack of the proper prenatal care often includes complications like high blood pressure, anemia, and the premature birth of the baby.