Teenage pregnancy and associated risks

TEENAGE pregnancy is one barrier that forces girls out of school and is a threat to national development.
Many girls, not only in PNG but throughout the world, drop out of school due to teenage pregnancy.
Many times, the men responsible deny responsibility.
Medically, teenaged girls below 17 are too young to get pregnant.
University of PNG Medical School Professor Dr Glen Mola said they often experienced complications during childbirth.
This requires operations that could affect them for the following 20 years.
It is common knowledge that a teenager’s first pregnancy is unplanned.
That just throws the girl’s aspirations of being a doctor, nurse, teacher or whatever out of the window. Some of the girls opt for abortion, which puts their lives at risk, including losing their lives.
Every single day, women and girls die from complications associated with childbirth or pregnancy, or most times, unplanned pregnancy of young girls below the age of 18.
Preventing teenage pregnancy calls for a holistic approach, but the primary responsibility lies with parents.
If parenting is taken seriously, and every parent plays their role, girls will be fully empowered not to fall into the trap of risky sexual behavior that could end in unwanted pregnancy.
A large number of girls drop out of school as a result of teenage pregnancies.
In many cases, these are children whose parents are not closely involved in their lives at a personal level.
Such girls lack skills and values that would ensure they live responsibly.
Besides potentially leading to dropping out of school on the part of the schoolgirls involved, teen pregnancy also comes with economic strain on the young mothers and their families.
The children are likely to be rejected by their fathers, or have an absent father, especially if they are students themselves.
The role of parents and educators, too, needs to be emphasised.
This is because, ultimately, they are the ones in a better position to provide day-to-day guidance to adolescents and other young people.
They must, therefore, take the lead in this effort.
This is also a national issue.
If nothing is done to address it, it can potentially undermine the country’s development agenda, since it can easily lead to population explosion and perpetuate poverty.
As such, the task to prevent teenage pregnancy should not be left to a few actors.
The magnitude of the issue and its possible ramifications call for everyone’s involvement.
Adolescent pregnancies were issues in our traditional societies.
Our people lived simple and dignified lives and were governed by cultural beliefs and taboos.
The cultural taboos that discourage talking to adolescents on the topic of sex needs to be addressed.
That is a barrier in advocating young people as it’s stopping them from being educated on this topic.
This is a challenge.
As it is, PNG lacks proper statistics to confirm or deny a definite increase in adolescent pregnancies.
It can, however, be safely assumed that our current modern environment – especially in urban areas – is quite conducive to this trend.
Times are changing.
Comprehensive sex education must be in the learning curriculum in schools to address the growing the issue of teenage pregnancy.