Adolescent Pregnancy
Adolescence is youngsters within age group 15-24 years of according to WHO. Men and woman falling in this particular age group can neither be called children nor adults. They are between these two categories. They are legally adults and biologically mature.Here is an understanding of the emotional and physical description of an adolescent individual concerning the issue of Adolescent pregnancy
A - Anger, Anemic and Aggressive
D - Dynamic and Developing
O - Overconfident and Overindulging
L - Lonely and Lost
E - Experimenting and Exploration,
S - Sexual and Social
C – Courageous and Cheerful
E – Emotional and Eager
N – Nervous and Negative
T – Temperamental and Talkative
Pregnant teens are known to be exposed to higher risk towards the following medical complications:
• Placenta previa
• Pregnancy-induced hypertension
• Premature delivery
• Anemia
• Toxemia
It is found that baby’s born to teens are likely to be underweight. This is highly caused due to prematurity and intrauterine growth retardation.
Care for Adolescent pregnancy
1. The various treatment options must be carefully considered. Decisions like Abortion, adoption and raising the child with family support needs to be done with proper counseling.
2. Involve the teen’s parents and baby’s father can help in this process.
3. Parents may have a variety of reactions towards their daughter or son being in a parental stage. Nothing can be solved by anger. Tell your children’s that you are ready to help them and give them your parental support talk to them on their needs and help figure out the next step.
4. Smoking, alcohol and drug use needs to be checked in the pregnant teens. And if any of these then it is best to give them support to help them quit that.
5. Proper nutrition should be made available to them.
6. Proper exercise should be recommended along with adequate sleep.
7. A fair knowledge of contraceptive must be given to them that will help prevent unwanted pregnancy after this delivery.
8. Education is important to all at least to a level of under graduation. Teen mothers needs to be encouraged to complete their education.
9. Communication between the youngster and their parents and the health care provider is needed. Let this be more friendly and keep it in simple terms that don’t frighten them.
Preventive measures:
1. Knowledge of contraceptive and their usage details must be given to all youngsters either by the parents or by the educational institute. It may sound weird to speak to your children about this as in most culture this is not done. But then remember all are sexual beings and prevention is definitely better than adolescent pregnancy or worst abortion.
2. Adherence to any of the contraceptive method is also as important as the knowledge of its usage.
3. There are times when partners forget to take precautions and only worry about this when it is time for their periods. This needs to change if you decide you are mature enough to consider a sexually relationship then also know that the consequences are yours to face.
4. Don’t be shy to speak to your partner about such preventive measures.