Psychology assignment
ZyStrain21Teen pregnancy in the United States
Teen pregnancy in the United States
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy was founded in 1996 and has its headquarters in Washington D.C. and has nearly 200 organizations and media outlets which serve as partners. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy’s main agenda seeks to improve the lives and future prospects of children and families by ensuring that children are born into stable, two-parent families who have a commitment to and are ready for the demanding task of raising the next generation. Their strategy is aimed at the prevention of teen pregnancy and unplanned pregnancy among single, young adults by supporting a combination of responsible values and behavior by both men and women and responsible policies in both the public and private sectors. Their actions are aimed at improving child and family well-being therefore reducing the prevalence rate of poverty by providing more opportunities for the teenagers to complete their education or achieve other life goals while advocating for fewer abortions towards the creation of a stronger nation.
Teenage pregnancies have resulted to a total of 273,105 babies who were born to women aged 15–19 years, for a live birth rate of 26.5% per 1,000 women in this age group. There has been a decline in teen pregnancies with a drop of 10% in 2013. The birth rates declined at 13% for women aged 15–17 years, and 8% for women aged 18–19 years (Child Trends, 2014). Still, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate is substantially higher than in other western industrialized nations (Clay, et al, 2012). The national teen pregnancy rate has been declining steadily over the last two decades which has been attributed to the combination of an increased percentage of adolescents who are waiting to have sexual intercourse and the increased use of contraceptives by teens. The teen pregnancy rate includes the pregnancies that end in a live birth, as well as those that end in abortion or miscarriage resulting from fetal loss. In the United States 4 in 10 teens get pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20 which leads to the teenagers dropping out of school with more than 50% of teen mothers never completing school. The trends show that less than 10% of the fathers marry the mother of their child and that almost a half of the teen mothers get their second child within the first 24 months since 80% of teens who do not use protective methods have higher chances of becoming pregnant.
Teen birth rates have been declining significantly in the recent years, however, despite these declines, there still exists a lot of disparities that need to be properly addressed (Dessen, 2005). There are substantial disparities that persist in teen birth rates, and teen pregnancy and childbearing which continue to carry significant social and economic costs. In 2013, the Hispanic teen birth rates were still more than two times higher than the rate for white teens, and American Indian teen birth rates remained more than one and a half times higher than the white teen birth rate. The Native American teen birth rates have a considerably higher birth rate than other Americans (Kearney and Levine, 2012). The Hispanic, African American and American Indians have more socioeconomically disadvantaged youth than any race or ethnicity experience the highest rates of teen pregnancy and childbirth, together the black and Hispanic teens comprised 57% of United States teen births in 2013.
The United States has the highest number of teenage pregnancies among the industrialized countries with the teen birth rate for age 18-19 accounting for the majority of all teen births. There were 3,674 births to girls age 10-14 in 2012. The teen birth rate for girls’ age 15-17 years was 14.1 per 1,000 girls in 2012, and an overall decrease of 63 percent since 1991. In total there were 86,440 births to girls in the age group of 15-17 in 2012. There was however a slight decrease of 5 percent between 2011 and 2012, and there were 218,980 births to girls 18-19 in 2012. In the United States, 71 percent of all births were to teenagers in the age group of 18-19 (National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2014).
Teenagers are usually unprepared to face or deal with their own unexpected pregnancy or that of their girlfriend, a recent study found 66.7 of the adolescents who had dating experience revealed that they would not know what actions to take in case of pregnancy, and that 81.8% of the sexually active adolescents openly admitted to being worried about a possible pregnancy (Loke and Lam, 2014). When faced by an unexpected pregnancy, the teenage girls experience fear, confusion, guilt and worry which may lead to some of them denying the existence of their pregnancy. The fear of experiencing stigma and revealing the pregnancy to other people may prevent them from receiving early advice from the adults because their parents and boyfriends may put pressure on the pregnancy and contribute to their resolution decision since adolescents do not necessarily possess the cognitive ability that is needed to clearly evaluate their situations and to make rational decisions. There has been many case where the teenagers on discovering that they are pregnant, they make the immediate decision to terminate the pregnancy without considering other options like adoption and parenting (Kost and Henshaw, 2014).
The adults should play a big role in the shaping of teen attitudes towards relationships, sex and birth control, the parents should be involved in the emotional and financial support that is given to the teens in order to shape their way of perceiving relationships as a source of income and support. The community should be involved in the building of relationships that lay an emphasis on preventing and educating teens on pregnancy and, developing ways that help the teenagers which enable them to understand and eliminate it. The community should also seek collaboration from foundations and organizations that promote teenager education on the prevention of early pregnancies, so they can form a partnership that promotes the prevention of teenage pregnancies, effective and proper parenting and support. These initiatives should be based on the different cultural background statistics which show what is arising and how it affects each diversity culture. The prevention of teen pregnancy is a major community concern that must be systematically be eliminated, the community leaders must be fully involved in the design of the reduction procedure which should be inclusive of almost all members of the community and is considerate of other ideologies and possible collaborations to change the adolescent sexual health risk so as the youth to understand the need for community attention in teen pregnancy.
References
Akella, D., & Jordan, M. (2015). Impact of Social and Cultural Factors on Teenage Pregnancy. Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice, 8(1), 3. Retrieved from: https://scholar.google.com
Clay, J. A., Sagrestano, L. M., & Finerman, R. (2012). Building relationships to strategically impact community initiatives to reduce teen pregnancy. Journal of health and human services administration, 274-302. Retrieved from: https://scholar.google.com
Kearney, M. S., & Levine, P. B. (2012). Why is the teen birth rate in the United States so high and why does it matter? (No. w17965). National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from: https://scholar.google.com
Yuen, L. A., & Pui-ling, L. (2014). Pregnancy resolutions among pregnant teens: termination, parenting or adoption? BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 14(1), 421. Retrieved from: https://scholar.google.com