Underage sex and pregnancy

Editorial: Sex and consequence

2007-06-04T15:56:00.000-07:00

JUNE is back to school, back to repairing desks, cleaning classrooms, and-ideally-educating youths about sex and its consequences. Homes and schools should open mature and sensitive discussions of these concerns as one viable option for protecting teenagers from the illegal, invisible but pervasive scourge of abortion.

No. 4 killer Although abortion is illegal in the country, the Department of Health (DOH) records 400,000 illegal abortions performed annually, with 80,000 of these ending in hospitalizations due to abortion-related complications. In 1994, 12 percent of maternal deaths were due to unsafe abortions, according to the DOH. Due to the law and public rejection, two-thirds of Filipino women resort to self-induced abortion or pay quacks to perform this. “Induced abortion is the fourth leading cause of maternal death in the country,” stresses the first “State of the Philippine Population Report (SPPF)” published by the Commission on Population (Popcom).

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Catch them young

2007-05-29T15:06:00.000-07:00

There is an urgent need for youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services in the fight against HIV Aids, writes ROSE ORONJE

LACK OF SEX EDUCATION AND information is to blame for early sexual activity among young people in sub-Saharan Africa and the spread of HIV/Aids, says a study.

As a result, the majority of sexually active young people in the region do not protect themselves against unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/Aids.

According to a study by Infotrak Research and Consulting, more than 50 per cent of girls in Kenya lose their virginity by the age of 16.

In a joint study by the African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC) and the Guttmacher Institute (US) in 2004, about half of young people (age 15-19 years) in Uganda and Malawi, 40 per cent in Burkina Faso, and 22 per cent in Ghana, were found to be sexually active.

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Teenage pregnancy: Let's talk about sex

2007-05-27T15:42:00.000-07:00

As teenage pregnancy rates remain stubbornly high in the UK, Tom de Castella asks whether a new approach is needed

Teenage pregnancy is one of those totemic issues used to measure how well a society brings up its young people. And in study after study, the UK compares badly with other European countries, with teenage girls here five times more likely to become pregnant than their Dutch counterparts.

In 1999, the Government launched its Teenage Pregnancy Strategy with a target of halving the 90,000 teenage conceptions in 1998 by 2010, and an interim goal of a 15 per cent reduction by 2004. The latter was missed and few experts believe the Government will reach its objective. But the Government and its advisers insist there has been progress. Since the strategy was set out, the number of conceptions for under-18s has fallen by 11 per cent, while birth rates have come down by 20 per cent due to an increase in abortions. But progress is uneven and between 2004 and 2005 conceptions among women under 16 in fact nudged up by 0.3 per cent.

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Parents play key role in preventing teen pregnancy

2007-05-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a leading think tank studying sexual behavior, in 2004 the U.S. teen pregnancy rate was 96 per 1,000 girls. In the case of California, almost 10 percent of girls ages 15-19 were likely to become pregnant.For parents, this is startling information. Time and again, parents will ask "What can we do?" and the answer starts at home.

School health classes contribute to helping teens avoid pregnancy, but they are only one piece of the puzzle. Some districts have semester-long health programs, while other districts have all but removed health from their schedules by reducing a semester-long class into a weeklong component. Whichever direction a school district opts to go, the time spent dealing with pregnancy prevention is minimal.

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Study: Canadian Teen Pregnancy Rates Down, Sexually Transmitted Infections Rates Up

2007-05-19T14:29:00.000-07:00

Toronto, ON (AHN) - Canada's teenage pregnancy rate is at all-time low and teen abortions rates have also dropped according to a study. The research shows that the teen pregnancy rate in Canada fell about 40 percent between 1974 and 2003.

Alex McKay, research coordinator at the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada attributed the lower pregnancy rate to birth control, "it's due to greater contraceptive use, not teens having less sex."

In fact, while teen pregnancy rates are down, sexually transmitted infections rates are up. He said that the birth control pill is being used as a primary form of contraception and it does not prevent against sexually transmitted infections.
McKay wants teenagers and young adults to know that preventing infections is just as important as preventing pregnancy.

"One of the things we clearly need to do in this country is promote greater consistent condom use among all young people."

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Teen pregnancy rate for region lower than national average

2007-05-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

Although a recent report on sex information said Canada's teen pregnancy rate is highest in the north and in rural areas, this region has bucked the trend.

"Leeds, Grenville and Lanark have some of the lowest rates of pregnancy for 15- to 19-year-olds in the province," said Jane Futcher, the director of clinical services at the local health unit.
The report by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada - which also stated that teen pregnancy has hit an all-time low and teen abortion rates have hit a 10-year low in Canada - stated that rural teens lack access to sexual health services that cater to young people.
But that's not the case here.

"We have sexual health clinics in all of our health unit locations in Gananoque, Brockville, Smiths Falls, Perth, Almonte and Kemptville," said Futcher. These clinics generally serve people ages 14 to 27, but sometimes serve younger and older clients in the case that they don't have a family doctor who can prescribe birth control.

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Battle teen pregnancy with science, not ideology

2007-05-17T12:23:00.000-07:00

Study says federal government wastes money with abstinence-only programs.

In the United States, teen birth, teen abortion and sexually transmitted infection rates are higher than in most other industrialized countries. In 1999, 48 out of 1,000 U.S. women ages 15 to 19 gave birth -- a rate 11 times greater than in the Netherlands and four times higher than in Germany. The teen abortion rate in the United States is more than three times that of France and nearly seven times that of the Netherlands.In New York state, nearly 40,000 teens became pregnant in 2004, according to the New York State Department of Health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that four in 10 teens in New York will have sex before they graduate high school.

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What Every Parent Should Hear: Teen Pregnancy

2007-05-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

Over the past ten years there has been a steady decline in the teen pregnancy rate.
Tonight, we continue our series on "What every parent should hear," discussing a teen parenting program.
Kristi Henderson learned what one local school is doing to help educate their students.
Independence High School is dedicated to teaching their students about teen pregnancy and about parent and child development.
And teachers say it starts with making good decisions.

You can watch this program here

Mothers first, then only adults

2007-05-17T12:16:00.000-07:00

BECOMING a mother before becoming an adult seems to be a growing trend in South Africa where teenage pregnancy is on the rise.

In a country where the HIV prevalence amongst 15-19-year-old girls is 9 percent, teenagers continue to take the risk of having unprotected sex.

According to national statistics 72 000 schoolgirls cited pregnancy as a reason for not being in school in 2005. Figures from the Society for Family Health (SFH) indicate that 17% of 15 - 24-year-old females are HIV positive. What makes this statistic even more shocking is that only 21% of 15 - 24-year-olds have been tested, which is lower than the national average for testing of 30%.

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Leveling with kids about s-e-x

2007-05-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

One day, point-blank, Harriet Gourdine-Adams' 8-year-old son, what with his ready access to the pamphlets and brochures in his mother's workaday arsenal, asked her to define "sex." She gave him an age-appropriate answer."I said, 'Oh, it's the special way that mommy and daddy love each other.' And he says, 'Oh, OK.'"

He kept it moving, did not bat an eye, did not miss a beat, said Gourdine-Adams, family planning director for Nassau County's community health centers. He was satisfied with her easy, breezy comeback. And this, she said, came as a relief to her 15-year-old daughter, who was standing in a corner listening and, by the contortions on her face, petrified about what would drop from her pull-no-punches mother's mouth onto a little boy's brain.

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What sex week forgot?

2007-05-13T08:55:00.000-07:00

On college campuses, to warn students of the dangers of 'friends with benefits' and 'hooking up' is so politically incorrect

With headlines focused on college massacres and presidential nominees, it's natural to have overlooked an event that has become familiar on campuses around the nation: Sex Week. The goals of last month's happening at Northwestern University were to examine misconceptions about sexual health and to speak openly about "taboo" and "hush-hush" topics.

Don't yawn -- to dismiss Sex Week without scrutiny would be a blunder.

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Fewer Utah Teens Getting Pregnant

2007-05-12T14:38:00.000-07:00

Utah's teen pregnancy rate has fallen more than 3.5 percent in the last two years. In 2003, nearly 40 of every 1,000 girls ages 15-19 became pregnant.

In 2005, the number dropped to 38 per 1,000. In 2005, the Utah Department of Health (UDOH) set an ambitious goal to cut the state's teen pregnancy rate (includes live births, fetal deaths, and abortions) by 20 percent by the year 2015 (baseline year 2003), which would bring the rate to 32 births per 1,000. There is more good news. Teen pregnancy rates have fallen more than 20 percent in Utah and the U.S. over the last decade.

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Mothers, daughters talk about sex

2007-05-11T08:20:00.000-07:00

As a father, Dr. Dave Solberg concedes that children don't want lectures, so he had a question for girls at a teen pregnancy conference Thursday:

"When you have sex, the question you have to ask yourself is, 'Do I want to be a mother today?'" Solberg said Thursday during a presentation for girls and their mothers.
Dozens of women and girls turned out to hear Solberg and another doctor discuss some of the consequences of sex, including pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infections.
Though some of the teens said they didn't want to hear the facts from their parents, the women at "Just for Us Girls!" said they believe their girls need to get the information in some way.

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Welcome and leave your comment now

2007-05-10T10:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry that I didn't realise that people cannot leave their comment, I have already change the settings for the blog and you are all welcome to leave your comment and start your debate here.

Teen pregnancy must be a talking point

2007-05-07T15:31:00.000-07:00

Last December, frustrated by a teen pregnancy rate that kept rising even as state and national levels were dropping, a group of Washington County officials decided to risk $5,000 in prize money on the idea that teens could persuade their peers to delay or abstain from sex.

On Thursday night, their bet paid off, as teens, parents and some elected officials gathered at the Maryland Theatre to view a short film, some 30-second spots and some print ads. Many different techniques were used, but the theme for all was the same - sex has consequences.

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Posters of promoting sex education

2007-05-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

Change to sex education urged

2007-05-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

CONTRACEPTION PLAN: Taiwan should follow the example of Sweden, which instructs on birth control from a young age, the Taiwan Association for Sexuality Education said By Max Hirsch

All they wanted to do was talk about sex.
The 16th annual conference of the Taiwan Association for Sexuality Education (TASE) saw leading experts in various sex-related fields descend on National Taiwan Normal University yesterday for what the association billed as the nation's first ever academic forum on sex education.

Faced with an alarming HIV/AIDS epidemic in the region and the fact that the nation has the highest birth rate in Asia among teenage girls -- statistics suggest a birth rate as high as 12 percent among girls aged 15 to 19 from 2000 to 2005 -- the nation must rethink its approach to sex education, experts urged, warning the government not to look to the US for guidance.

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Sex education needs to address teenage pregnancy, expert says

2007-05-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

Taiwan's high teenage pregnancy rate can be attributed to insufficient sex education as well as the conservative attitude of parents toward sex, an expert said yesterday.
Kao Sung-chin, secretary-general of the Taiwan Association for Sexuality Education, made the remarks during a seminar sponsored by the association.

Kao said that more open sex education, with teachers and parents more willing to discuss issues related to sex, would be most helpful to teenagers. He said that although Taiwan's birthrate has continued to slip, its birthrate among teenagers is the highest in Asia, or three times that of Asia, and five times that of South Korea. He noted that the birth rate among teenagers dropped to eight per 1,000 in 2005 from 14 per 1,000 in 2000, averaging 11.8 per 1,000 over the past five years. This compares with 4 per 1,000 in Japan and 2.8 per 1,000 in South Korea.

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'This is not a game'

2007-05-05T06:04:00.000-07:00

Abstinence advocate gives students firm talk

Frank, sincere and powerful words about sexual abstinence boomed to Sturgis High School students Monday."Real love respects," said national abstinence speaker, Pam Stenzel. "Love would never ask you to do something that would damage you the rest of your life."Stenzel spoke with a passion that captured the attention of hundreds of teens. The cost of having a baby, the risks of obtaining an STD and the price of a broken heart were all part of Stenzel's hour-long assembly.

The No. 1 fear teens have today about having sex is pregnancy, Stenzel said. But pregnancy is not a disease. It's survivable.

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Teen Pregnancy - The Problems Of A Child-Mother

2007-05-05T06:03:00.000-07:00

Teen pregnancy is one of the major social issues in today’s society. Today’s teens are becoming sexually active at a younger age than teens of the previous generation. Most of the times, it is due to peer pressure to be “cool” and “popular”. However, sadly, they are not aware of the consequences of unprotected sex, which leads to unwanted pregnancy. The pressures are manifold in such cases, first informing the parent about the situation they are in. Secondly, the guilt and shame such girls undergo can psychologically scar them for life.
Social Problems of Pregnant Teens

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Abuse major cause for teen pregnancy

2007-05-04T08:28:00.000-07:00

A study on adolescent pregnancies, conducted at the Medical College Hospital here, has found that child sex abuse is the major cause of pregnancy in the 15-18 age group.The study was conducted by Dr Khuraisha Beevi, assistant professor at the Prevention of Epidemic and Infective diseases section of the Medical College.

It is high time that we introduced sex education, not just for students but for parents too,?said Khuraisha Beevi.Her study on adolescent pregnant girls who were admitted to the MCH for termination of pregnancies reveal that 19.7 percent cases resulted from sex abuse by close relatives. This is seen more in broken families and families where the parents have a strained relationship,pointed out Khuraisha Beevi.

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School hands out 345 morning-after pills to students - without telling parents

2007-05-01T16:23:00.000-07:00

A school has admitted handing out 345 morning-after pills to teenage girls without telling their parents.

The figure for contraceptives distributed at Lutterworth Grammar School and Community College over four years is believed to be the highest in England and Wales.
Parents and family groups were outraged at the "disgusting" and "wicked" scheme which they say encourages promiscuity and could put children at risk of contracting sexually-transmitted diseases.

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This is a news that I found from Daily Mail recently.

I think I can't really accept what they did, because this will give encouragement to the teenagers to have unprotected and underage sex.

I think the way to reduce under age pregnancies is not to hand out pills, but to hand out the punishment laid down by law on anyone having underage sex. If some prison sentences were handed out people, particularly young people, would perhaps think twice before indulging in promiscuous activities. And I think they should promote and educate the teenagers rather than handing out the pills.

It is not reasonable that the school not telling the parents becasue schools will let you know if your child has missed a lesson, even when they are 16 plus, is their health of less importance than missing lessons?

Sex education: Talking to toddlers and preschoolers about sex

2007-04-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

Sex education can begin anytime. Here's how to set the stage — and how to answer your children's questions.
Sex education is a topic many parents would prefer to avoid. And if you have young children, you might think you're off the hook — at least for a while. But that's not necessarily true. Sex education can begin anytime. Let your children set the pace with their questions.

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I think this is a useful website for parents to know how to communicate with your child if they ask questions about pregnancy.

Free condoms for teenagers

2007-04-27T09:10:00.000-07:00

CHILDREN as young as 13 are being given free condoms in a bid to tackle teenage pregnancy.

Hampshire County Council is offering free contraception to youngsters on some secondary school sites, colleges and youth drop-in centres even though the age at which children can legally have sexual intercourse in Britain is 16.

The council is getting £8,000 of government money to buy condoms over the next year for the county-wide scheme, called Get It On.

The aim is to reduce teenage pregnancy rates. While under-18 conception rates have dropped in Britain, they are still the highest in Western Europe.

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To Educate or Not to Educate?

2007-04-27T09:08:00.000-07:00

Comprehensive sex education should be taught at schools nation wide. There are many consequences to students not getting all of the facts which include high pregnancy and abortion rates as well as high STD and STI numbers. There are other countries where comprehensive sex ed. is taught and their numbers on all are lower. It also breaks down what is really being taught in all inclusive sex ed. programs.

The majority of today’s youth are only being told half of the story when it come to sex. Forty-nine of our fifty states have federally funded “Abstinence Only” sex education in their public schools. By only teaching that sex should be saved until marriage adolescents are not being exposed to the information they need in order to make informed decisions about their own sex lives. As a result of this, if young adults do chose to become sexually active, they will not know how to or have the tools necessary to have safe sex of any form. By establishing comprehensive sex education in all schools the youth of America will not only learn about ways to effectively protect themselves from STDs and pregnancy, but also about healthy relationships and decision making skills.

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Best way to stop abortion is honest sex education

2007-04-26T06:07:00.000-07:00

The abortion debate frustrates Joan Specht. She has been a nurse at Planned Parenthood in Broward County for eight years, and was a labor and delivery nurse at a Boca Raton hospital before that.

She has helped deliver healthy babies and has helped women who've decided to abort.With the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruling that lawmakers can ban certain abortion procedures, she worries that women's control over their bodies is being chipped away.But she also has another, more pressing concern: that teens aren't getting properly educated to avoid unwanted pregnancies -- and the need for abortions -- to begin with.

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Trust me, I'm a junior doctor

2007-04-21T14:42:00.000-07:00

Teenagers know far too much about sex, says Max Pemberton

'And when Mummy and Daddy really love each other..." my mum says, blinking at me with a fixed smile. "Yeah, I know," I interrupt, dreading where this conversation is leading.

My dad, sitting alongside her on the sofa, has an air of contained panic and a strange constipated expression. Mum is holding a booklet. "Sometimes they give each other a special kind of cuddle," she perseveres, swallowing hard. "Yeah, thanks, really," I interrupt again, wondering which of us has turned the deepest shade of red. "And sometimes then what happens is that Daddy's..." her voice falters. "OK, OK, thanks, that's enough!" I scream.

"Basically, your mother and I want to talk to you about..." begins my dad, who was doing well up to this point. I am now rather enjoying their attempts to avoid using any remotely naughty words. "...conjugal relations," he continues, after a lengthy pause. "Making love," she butts in, fearing that conjugal relations sounds like something to do with international politics.

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'Learning about sex is a normal part of growing up'

2007-04-21T14:40:00.000-07:00

Research has shown that abstinence-only sex education hasn't worked. That's no surprise, says Simon Blake, who believes young people need more, not less, information and choice.

New American research has confirmed that abstinence-only education doesn't work. The study found that teenagers who had been educated to believe they should not have sex before marriage were, in fact, just as likely as other teenagers to become sexually active.

Hopefully, the advocates of the chastity pledge, both in the US, and in the UK where some recently have tried to emulate the American approach, will now accept that abstinence-only education is not the silver bullet that can solve high rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

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Kids need truth about sex

2007-04-21T14:39:00.000-07:00

Sharon Swanson, Correspondent

My 13-year-old daughter wanted to see "The Nativity" over the winter holidays. It's spring now, and I'm still dealing with the fallout of my boycott of that particular film. "Mom, did you know that the girl who plays Mary is 15 and she's pregnant too, just like Jesus' mother?" she said of actress and mom-to-be Keisha Castle-Hughes.
"Well, um, there are some major differences between those two," I said, while trying to decide what grounds I would use for not patronizing an ostensibly religious movie that glamorizes an underage girl's pregnancy for publicity purposes.

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Talking to teens can help prevent pregnancy

2007-04-21T14:36:00.000-07:00

The studies have been done, and the conclusions are firm as to the influence that adults have on teens as it pertains to sex.Some of thefindings include

n What a parent thinks about premarital sex influences how their teens think about premarital sex.

n What adults in general think about premarital sex affects what teens think about it.

n Adult discussion of sexual values can predict how a teen thinks and behaves sexually.

Parental involvement, parent-child communication, family values and expectations of your children are positively related to delaying sexual behaviors, according to research titled “Families Matter,” the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy’s research of family influences on adolescent pregnancy.

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10pc of male school pupils have had sex, survey finds

2007-04-21T14:31:00.000-07:00

About one in 10 male secondary students has had sex, a new survey finds. The number for female students is 7 per cent, according to the study by Mother's Choice, a charity for young mothers and babies, and City University.

The study, which examines local adolescents' attitudes and behaviour towards sexuality, interviewed 1,161 boys and 1,011 girls aged 12 to 19 from 30 secondary schools.

More than 30 per cent of male students believe sex is part of dating but only 15 per cent of female students think so.

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I found this news on yahoo.com.hk today, and I was quite surprised about it. Nowadays, teens pregnancy is a problem around the world, and there are no solution for this problem yet but only educating teenagers.

Teens: Wait for sex

2007-04-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

Youngsters warned about the consequences of not waiting

By MARK NEWMAN Courier staff writer

OTTUMWA — The message isn’t one of safe sex; it’s the message of no sex. During a short play they performed Thursday, teens told fifth-graders to be smart.

“Sometimes, teenagers can let romantic relationships move too fast and turn into sexual relationships,” the high schoolers announced. “Sex can have major consequences ... most teenagers aren’t prepared to deal with.”

The Teen Leaders in Action program brought Ottumwa High School students to Douma Elementary School for a lesson about abstinence.

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Educate teens to make better choices

2007-04-13T07:17:00.000-07:00

Teen pregnancy. A term that society is all too familiar with. A term that Tulare County is too familiar and comfortable with. Yet, teen pregnancy seems to be commonly overlooked or ignored by most people.

This is unsettling considering that Tulare County averages about 86 births per 1,000 teens compared to the state average of 56.7 births per 1,000 teens.

What is to blame for so many young women becoming pregnant? Personally, I think there are many causes that help to attribute to teen pregnancy. The most important reason is the lack of knowledge young women receive about sex and the dangers that come with being sexually active.

Teens are not receiving all the information needed to prevent a pregnancy, such as contraception.

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Schools handing out morning after pill to under-age girls backed by Ofsted

2007-04-13T07:15:00.000-07:00

The controversial decision for schools to provide under-age girls with emergency contraception has been endorsed by education watchdog Ofsted.

The schools inspectorate said that school nurses who administered hormone injections and the morning- after pill to girls who had sex without condoms were performing a "valuable service".

In a report which enraged traditionalists, Ofsted said more schools should provide such facilities as part of moves to cut teenage pregnancy rates.

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Teens attitude about teen sex and pregnancy

2007-04-04T12:25:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, teens pregnancy is a problem in the society, I beleive that this is really because most of the teens don't treat sex as a serious thing. They have sex because most of them think that it is funny, so of course they will not care about the consequences of it.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy recently released its "With One Voice 2007” report, this is a report of how teenagers think about teens sex and pregnancy. There are also adults view on sending the message to their children.

We can see it from the figure, 64% of the teens said they do share parents' value about sex. It sounds really impressing I think, because it is really important that both parents and teens should share their views together in order to send the correct information to the children about sex.

However, 48% have never thought about what their life would become if they got or got someone else pregnant. It is not surprise that they will not think about it becasue they don't really know what will happen as they haven't experienced it before.

Here are the figures

Growing up as a mother

2007-04-01T13:07:00.000-07:00

This is a real life story of a mother who was pregnant when she was 14. And without any doubt, she paid the price:

At 14, Anna Gurganus thought she had such "a humdrum life" she couldn't wait to get out of high school.

But that was before she became pregnant and married at age 15. Suddenly, any plans she had came to a screeching halt and school -- along with childhood -- became distant memories.

That was nearly 19 years ago. Now, at age 33, she and husband, Jimmy, have six children. And while they might be considered a success story for staying together, each member of the family has paid the price for being a part of a teen pregnancy.

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'Sex should be taught at younger age' – report

2007-03-30T04:25:00.000-07:00

YOUNG people need to be taught about sex and relationship education at an earlier age, according to a Swindon Council report.

The findings come after Swindon Primary Care Trust and Swindon Youth Service held a series of discussion groups with more than 140 of the town's youngsters.

The survey was carried out to help develop the Swindon Teenage Pregnancy Action Plan and will be presented before a joint meeting of the Health Scrutiny and the Children's Overview Committee on Thursday.

Young people between the ages of 11 and 17 were asked about what kind of advice they required in relation to sexual health and relationships and what information they would like to receive from their parents and teachers.

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Being a mum made me grow up quickly

2007-03-30T04:22:00.000-07:00

By Sarah Hilley

A YOUNG mum who gave birth at 15 has been drafted in to help the Swindon Primary Care Trust teenage pregnancy unit warn youngsters against underage sex.

Emma Page's toddler is now 18 months old and she is only 17.

She has been working on a campaign at the PCT to help it educate youngsters about safe sex.
She advises teenagers to "use a condom and use it properly."

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Teen pregnancy prevention coalition targets parents

2007-03-30T04:17:00.000-07:00

by ERIN CUNNINGHAM

Thursday March 29, 2007

HAGERSTOWN - The Washington County Teen Pregnancy Prevention Coalition said it will use parental influence to help reduce the county's teen birth rate, which is the fourth highest in the state.
Coalition Coordinator Carrol Lourie said the county ranks behind Baltimore City, and Caroline and Dorchester counties on the Eastern Shore, according to birth rates among 15- to 19-year-olds in 2004, the most recent year from which data is available.

Co-sex education needed - Routledge

2007-03-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

Boyd Webb
March 21 2007 at 11:32AM

Men and women must be taught how to use condoms together so that they can help each other "when the situation arises".This was what Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge told the National Council of Provinces on Tuesday.

It was believed they needed to know how the opposite sex's condom worked, she said. This also ensured they were used correctly.

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DAVINA TALKS SEX

2007-03-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

INSTEAD of waiting until she felt ready, Davina McCall caved in to pressure and had sex way too early.

Rather than it being a special moment, she threw her virginity away. And she bitterly regrets it.
"I lost my virginity at too young an age," admits Davina, speaking exclusively to the Mirror. "I won't say how young in case my granny is reading this!
"I got cajoled into it - as many young girls do.
"If I'd had the sort of education that is on offer now I probably would have had the strength to say no.

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Kaiser Health Disparities Report: A Weekly Look At Race, Ethnicity And Health

2007-03-22T09:11:00.001-07:00

Youth & Health California County Addresses Teen Pregnancy Rate Among Hispanics
[Mar 21, 2007]

Cultural differences and beliefs, as well as language barriers, likely contribute to the high teen pregnancy rate in a Santa Cruz County, Calif., community that is mostly Hispanic, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports in a two-part series.

The county's city of Watsonville, where many residents have come from rural parts of Mexico, has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the county, according to the Sentinel. In 2005, four of every five births among women ages 15 to 19 in the county were to Watsonville residents, according to a Community Assessment Project report.

The county's overall teen birth rate has dropped by 18% since 1996, but Watsonville's decline has been "barely noticeable," the Sentinel reports.

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Christian Youth Abstinence Programme Launches in Norwich

2007-03-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

Christian youth workers in Norwich have launched an initiative with a group of teenagers in try to make a dent in the rising number of teenage pregnancies.

by Gretta Curtis
Posted: Thursday, March 22, 2007, 8:46 (GMT)

Christian youth workers in Norwich have launched an initiative with a group of teenagers to try to make a dent in the rising number of teenage pregnancies.

Romance Academy, which was opened Tuesday, takes a dozen 14 to 16-year-olds and challenges them to go without sex throughout the 15-week course.

The six boys and six girls will instead meet each week to focus on topics such as building and sustaining healthy relationships, contraception, sexually transmitted infections, drugs and alcohol, and self-image.

The course, organised by Pregnancy Crisis Norfolk (PCN), is inspired by the popular BBC2 series No Sex Please We're Teenagers.

It is being run by Christian youth workers Sarah Woodger and David Lanchester.

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Good or Bad

2007-03-20T04:45:00.000-07:00

I found an article from Santa Cruz Sentinel, which gives news from local area in Mexico. This one is about a girl Janeth Diaz. She found herself pregnant when she was 16. She felt good, bad and scared, all at the same time.

Janeth moved back in with her mother, herself a teen mom. Graciela Navarro was 18 and still living in Mexico when she had Janeth, and was disappointed to learn her daughter would travel the same troubled road.

Janeth, now 18, has five friends with children, ,like Janeth, they wanted children, even while they themselves were still growing up. To these girls, teen pregnancy is another rite of passage into adulthood, and if not celebrated, at least accepted.

It makes me concern about that teenagers might think that getting pregnant is a stage of becoming an adult. I think this is certainly not a good way to experience an adults life, having a child means that you need to give up your childhood. It is because you need to spend your time to take care of your child. And are you really prepare to be a mother or a father?

However, some parents said that relationship with their child has improve due to the unexpected baby, because they understand the difficulties of being a parents. Well, in this point I think it is really uncertain to say that teenage pregnancy is a bad thing or not. Still, I do not really argree with teens getting pregnant.

What do you think? Do you think that is good or not?

Declining teenage pregnency in local area

2007-03-20T04:39:00.000-07:00

Provisional figures for teenage pregnancy rates in 2005 from the Office for National Statistics and Teenage Pregnancy Unit are also high in Lambeth, with 79.7 15 to 17 years old out of every thousand becoming pregnant, more than in any other London borough.

But this is an improvement compared to the previous year, when the teenage pregnancy rate was 85.2.

Who to blame? Media or Parents?

2007-03-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

There are always arguement that the cause of underage sex and pregnancy. Some said we should blame the media for giving wrong concept of underage sex, and some said that the parents shorld be the person to blame because they did not educated them properly.

I read a news with the topic said "Sex at 14, blame it on her parents" which said teenagers having sex was mainly because that their parents are divorce and most of the time that their parents are not around. The other one said there might be a link that teenagers are having sex should blame the media which they usually portrayed sex as "risk free".

For me, I have another way of thinking. Teenagers are now getting mature earlier and they are curious about sex, but the fact that is they are shy to ask their parents. I one asked my friend Doyin if she would asked her parents about sex, she told me that is "embarresing", she prefer to ask their friends about it.

One of my friend Rav, she has two daughters. Her 5 years-old child aksed her that "where does baby come from?", this is a question which made her struggle to answer and keep thinking about it the whole day. This is just a normal question which does not really realated to sex, but it seems to her that it is already difficult to answer. So, I think that it might be difficult for parents to answer these kind of question as well.

As for media, it might be true that they sometimes portrayed sex as "risk free", but the point is if your child saw sex scenes on the programmes, maybe parents should be the main person to guide and explain to their children about the situation. So, I don't really think that media should really be blame.

Moreover, I also don't think that parents should be blame as well, because this is only a conflict of communication between parents and teenagers. Both sides of them are struggling to ask or answer the question.

Parents not best placed to advise children

2007-03-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

This news was long time ago which was published on The Independent , 11 Nov 2005. It was about the idea of parents are no more the best place to advise their children on contraception and abortion.

It all started with the newly introduce guideline from the government. Sue Axon, who is divorced with five children, was challenging the on the right of under-16s to have an abortion without their parents' consent or knowledge.

Backing for the guidlines, Nathalie Lieven, for the FPA, said that "parents were no longer necessarily the best people to advise a child", and that the traditional "paternalistic approach" that assumed they were ran contrary to social changes in Europe over the last 20 years.

Read More Here from the news.

Child sex 'should not always be reported'

2007-03-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

By Sarah Womack, Social Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:05am GMT 17/03/2007

Children as young as 13 who are sexually active should not automatically be reported to the police, the Children's Commissioner for England said yesterday.

Prof Sir Albert Aynsley-Green said nurses, teachers and youth workers must follow Government guidelines published last April which state that while there is a "presumption" that information is passed on to social workers or police, decisions should be made using individual discretion on a case by case basis.

He spoke after Brook, the sexual health charity, said ministers must intervene to ensure that the current guidance, which was causing confusion and leading to automatic reporting, did not deter children from seeking advice.

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Declaring war on teen pregnancy rates

2007-03-16T05:44:00.000-07:00

THE FIGHT to reduce the number of teenagers falling pregnant has been stepped up.Barking and Dagenham Primary Care Trust's teenage pregnancy team hosted its first annual conference at Eastbury Manor House to highlight the challenges it faces.

Young parents were joined by delegates from health, social care, children's centres, youth services, housing, voluntary and community organisations to talk about work going on in schools to alert children to potential dangers of falling pregnant as a youngster.

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Teenagers say 'no' to underage sex

2007-03-12T14:08:00.000-07:00

Mar 10 2007
Gareth Rogers, South Wales Echo

Two youth workers have staged an innovative project aimed at cutting teen pregnancy by encouraging youngsters to become celibate for 15 weeks.

Youth worker Nathan Scott-Cook, of Penarth, claims teenagers are brainwashed into having sex by the constant barrage of pressure everywhere from television to among their friends.

To prove there was a way to counter this, the trainee teacher found 12 Vale of Glamorgan teenagers aged 14 to 18 who pledged not to have sex for 15 weeks.

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Do you know.....?

2007-03-09T11:17:00.000-08:00

Do you know that the age at which girls can lawfully have sex is 16, but there are extra rules applying to the under-13s.

The law presumes that when a girl is under 13 she is not mature enough to consent to sex. So even if a 12-year-old girl willingly has intercourse, as far as the law is concerned, she has not "consented" to it because legally she is not able to.

The implication of the rule is that anyone who has sex with a girl under 1is committing what is termed "statutory rape". There is no defence to this charge - even if a boy says the girl was willing or that he thought she was older than she was, it would not matter. It is the same as when two 15 years-old who were having sex.

You can see there are consequences for underage sex, think before you do it. Sex is not a funny thing to try. It's the same as underage pregnancy.

Sources: BBC News 1999

Pregnant 14-year-old says it's 'fashionable' as four friends are also expecting

2007-03-06T03:55:00.000-08:00

By TOM KELLY and LUKE SALKELD

23rd February 2007

A pregnant 14-year-old has told how having a baby is now regarded as "fashionable" among schoolgirls.
Kizzy Neal has been asked to give advice to four of her classmates who have also fallen pregnant since Christmas.
The teen, from Torbay in Devon, said: "When my friends see my bump they say they wish they could have a baby, then three weeks later they're pregnant and don't know what to do.

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Fashion? Or Stupidity

2007-03-06T03:43:00.000-08:00

Official figures showed England and Wales have the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Europe.

Worryingly, the biggest increase in the latest statistics came among younger girls. The 7,917 pregnancies recorded among girls under 16 reversed several years of falling underage conception rates.

In 2005 the number of pregnancies among under-18s was 39,683 - up from 39,593 in 2004, and higher than the 35,400 recorded a decade ago in 1995.

Even the rate is falling, but the problem still exist. Teenagers thinks that having a baby is 'fashionable' , they do not know the consequent of having a baby. It means that they need to give up their childhood.

Is underage sex and pregnancy really fashionable or it is just stupidity?