Yep. Sounds great to me. Let's all encourage our teens to be pregnant as often as possible. Lifetime of opportunity awaits them!!!
http://www.teenshelter.org/data.htmNearly one in five teenagers who experience a premarital pregnancy will get pregnant again within a year. Within two years, more than 31 percent will have a repeat pregnancy. One quarter of births to teen mothers in Ca. represents a repeat birth during the teen years.
Although not specifically related to teens, the increase of births to unmarried women has increased dramatically and this obviously contributes to the number of single parents households. Since 1960, births to unmarried women has increased more than 400 percent. In 1960, only 5.3 percent of all births were out of wedlock. By 1990, this had increased to 28.0. The percentage of births is disproportionately higher to educationally & economically disadvantaged mothers.
Although it is not inevitable,
the daughters of teen mothers are likely to become pregnant as teens. <8> It is estimated that as high as 75% of pregnant teens had mothers who were also pregnant while as an adolescent.e cost to our government for teen pregnancy is estimated by several different agencies. Various estimates put it as high as $50,000,000,000 annually, while the low side estimate is a staggering $25,000,000,000. This does not consider the cost of factors other than direct payments. Education, food subsidies, incarceration, WIC and other programs are not included, nor the costs in time and actual money contributed by charitable organizations
46% of single mothers receive public assistance
Of prison inmates between 15 & 19 years of age, 90% are products of an adolescent pregnancy
Three in ten teen mothers go on welfare within three years of the birth of their first child.
Approximately 70 percent of all pregnant adolescents do not receive adequate prenatal care, when in reality, this is the group that needs the most care. <16>
The health risks to the baby are substantially greater. Nine percent of teen moths have low birth weight babies. Low birth weight babies are 40 times more likely to die in their first month of life than normal weight babies. <17>
Mary's Shelter is a residential home for adolescent teens. We are a state licensed not-for-profit agency serving young pregnant women in need of a residence. Data relating to teen pregnancy is presented with reference information.
The same risk factors that contribute to teen pregnancy also contribute to a high incidence of risk for HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.. See facts on STDs.
Teens too often have poor eating habits, and may smoke, drink alcohol and take drugs,
increasing the risk that their babies will be born with health problems. Pregnant teens are least likely of all maternal ages to get early and regular care. A teenage mother is more at risk of pregnancy complications such as premature or prolonged labor, anemia and high blood pressure. The risks are even greater for teens who are less than 15 years old.One in three teen mothers drops out of high school. Teens may not have developed good parenting skills, or have social support systems to help them deal with the stress of raising an infant. <19> Pregnancy and parenting is cited as a major reason for females dropping out of school.
Eighty percent of females who become mothers before the age of eighteen don't finish high school and forty percent of females who give birth by age fifteen don't complete 8th gradeNone of these data address yet another victim of teen pregnancy. Hard statistics are difficult to locate, but information from various agencies, including Mary's Shelter, indicate that the father is nearly always older than the mother. Our data show that
the younger the birth mother, the greater the age difference between herself and the father. In fact, many of these fathers are guilty of statutory rape, and yet most states do very little to prosecute. The seldom discussed fact is that a percentage of the fathers accept the reality of what they have helped create at yet there are no programs to address their needs are assist them in facing their future in a responsible manner.
http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/fb_teen_sex.htmlTeenagers are less likely than older women to practice contraception without interruption over the course of a year, and more likely to practice contraception sporadically or not at all
A sexually active teenager who does not use contraceptives has a 90% chance of becoming pregnant within one year
Each year, almost 1 million teenage women--10% of all women aged 15-19 and 19% of those who have had sexual intercourse--become pregnant
78% of teen pregnancies are unplanned, accounting for about 1/4 of all accidental pregnancies annually
13% of all U.S. births are to teens
The fathers of babies born to teenage mothers are likely to be older than the women: About 1 in 5 infants born to unmarried minors are fathered by men 5 or more years older than the mother
78% of births to teens occur outside of marriage
1/4 of teenage mothers have a second child within 2 years of their firstTeens who give birth are much more likely to come from poor or low-income families (83%) than are teens who have abortions (61%) or teens in general (38%)
7 in 10 teen mothers complete high school, but they are less likely than women who delay childbearing to go on to college
1/3 of pregnant teens receive inadequate prenatal care; babies born to young mothers are more likely to be low-birth-weight, to have childhood health problems and to be hospitalized than are those born to older mothersSince 1980, abortion rates among sexually experienced teens have declined steadily, because fewer teens are becoming pregnant, and in recent years, fewer pregnant teens have chosen to have an abortion
The reasons most often given by teens for choosing to have an abortion are being concerned about how having a baby would change their lives, feeling that they are not mature enough to have a child and having financial problems.
61% of minors who have abortions do so with at least one parent's knowledge; 45% of parents are told by their daughter. The great majority of parents support their daughter's decision to have an abortion so much for the idea that parental notification laws are needed because the majority of kids won't tell their parents. Then again, facts don't matter when you're screaming hyperbole--hed http://www.marchofdimes.com/professionals/14332_1159.aspTeen mothers are more likely than mothers over age 20 to give birth prematurely (before 37 completed weeks of pregnancy). In 2002, the 7,315 girls under age 15 who gave birth were more than twice as likely to deliver prematurely than women ages 30 to 34 (21 vs. 9 percent).2 Babies born too soon face an increased risk of newborn health problems and even death, as well as lasting disabilities.Teens too often have poor eating habits, neglect to take their vitamins, and may smoke, drink alcohol and take drugs, increasing the risk that their babies will be born with health problems.
Studies also show that teens are less likely than older women to be of adequate pre-pregnancy weight and/or to gain an adequate amount of weight during pregnancy (25 to 35 pounds is recommended for women of normal weight). Low weight gain increases the risk of having a low-birthweight baby (less than 5½ pounds).# Pregnant teens are more likely to smoke than pregnant women over age 25. In 2002, 13.4 percent of pregnant teens ages 15 to 17 and 18.2 percent of those ages 18 to 19 smoked, compared to 11.4 of all pregnant women.2 Smoking doubles a woman’s risk of having a low-birthweight baby, and also increases the risk of pregnancy complications, premature birth and stillbirth.
#
Pregnant teens are least likely of all maternal age groups to get early and regular prenatal care. In 2002, 6.6 percent of mothers ages 15 to 19 years received late or no prenatal care (compared to 3.6 percent for all ages).2#
A teenage mother is at greater risk than women over age 20 for pregnancy complications such as premature labor, anemia and high blood pressure. These risks are even greater for teens who are under 15 years old.2 These youngest mothers also may be more than twice as likely to die of pregnancy complications than mothers ages 20 to 24# Three million teens are affected by sexually transmitted diseases annually, out of a total of 12 million cases reported. These include chlamydia (which can cause sterility), syphilis (which can cause blindness, maternal death, and death of the infant) and HIV (the virus which causes AIDS, which may be fatal to the mother and infant).4
In 2002,
9.6 percent of mothers ages 15 to 19 years had a low-birthweight baby (under 5.5 pounds), compared to 7.8 percent for mothers of all ages. The risk is higher for younger mothers: 11.3 percent of 15-year-old mothers had a low-birthweight baby in 2002 (18,703 girls this age gave birth, and 2,112 had low birthweight babies), compared to 8.9 percent of women aged 19 (168,111 births, with 14,920 of low birthweight).2
Low-birthweight babies may have organs that are not fully developed. This can lead to lung problems such as respiratory distress syndrome, or bleeding in the brain, vision loss and serious intestinal problems.
Low-birthweight babies are more than 20 times as likely to die in their first year of life as normal-weight babiesTeen mothers are more likely to drop out of high school than girls who delay childbearing. A 1997 study showed that only 41 percent of teenagers who have children before age 18 go on to graduate from high school compared to 61 percent of teens from similar social and economic backgrounds who did not give birth until ages 20 or 21.5
With her education cut short,
a teenage mother may lack job skills, making it hard for her to find and keep a job. A teenage mother may become financially dependent on her family or on public assistance. Teen mothers are more likely to live in poverty than women who delay childbearing, and over 75 percent of all unmarried teen mothers go on welfare within 5 years of the birth of their first child.A child born to an unmarried teenage high school dropout is 10 times as likely as other children to be living in poverty at ages 8 to 12.A child born to a teenage mother is 50 percent more likely to repeat a grade in school, and is more likely to perform poorly on standardized tests and drop out before finishing high school.----
So let's just encourage teens to get pregnant and have them babies! Look at the wonderful opportunities that not only await them, BUT their little gifts from conception as well!!! Truly, I now wish I'd gotten pregnant when I was a teen...sounds so.....fulfilling a life to live
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