martes, 30 de octubre de 2007

Adolescent Pregnancy

Teenage pregnancy is defined as a woman pregnant before her 18 years old. The term usually refers to women who have not reached legal adulthood, which varies across the world.
The fertility in girls leads to early pregnancy but it depends on a number of factors, both social and personal.

Most teenagers don't plan to get pregnant, but many do. Teen pregnancies carry extra health risks to the mother and the baby. Often, teenagers don't receive timely prenatal care, and they have a higher risk for pregnancy-related high blood pressure and its complications. Risks for the baby include premature birth and a low birthweight.
One of the most common factors in teenage pregnancy include lower educational levels and higher rates of poverty.
In Chile many adolescents do not lack knowledge of conventional methods of preventing pregnancy, but the majority of they have not received a good sexual education from their parents and they may be too embarrassed to seek such information, many of the teenagers do not dare to go to the medical centers to ask for contraceptive. This situation is more common in people who have a lower educational and economical level than in people who have more education and more money. In Chile and in many countries of the world poverty is associated with increased rates of teenage pregnancy. In our country economically poor places such as La pintana, San Miguel, Maipú and Cerro Navia have far more teenage mothers compared with economically rich places such as Vitacura, Las Cóndes, Providencia and La Reina.
However, some recent studies have found that the rate of contraceptive use among teenage girls is almost the same as that among older women.

But what happen with sexual behavior in adolescents?
Do they know everything there is to know about sex?
Some Teenagers reported feeling pressure by their friends to have sex , others Sexually active teenagers reported "being in a relationship where they felt things were moving too fast sexually". Nowadays Teenagers are enough irresponsible with their sexuality, They have sex with any person in a party or in any place.
And this behavior has consequences like teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.