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Awareness Of The Dangers Of Teenage Pregnancy And Motherhood Among Teenage Mothers
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 4]
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The preventive programmes based on promoting abstinence in most
Nigerian secondary schools, do not reduce teenage sex, pregnancy and
motherhood. The school based clinics, sex education and contraceptive
service programmes have little impact on teenage sexual activity.
Teenage motherhood continues to rise in every state in Nigeria. Many
teenage girls see themselves as having nothing to strive for as they
cannot see graduating from a tertiary school because they have few role
models to follow, their teachers give them little encouragement about
their abilities, their families are chaotic and their friends are on
drugs. So parenting looks more like the best option for them. Such girls
think babies provide immediate source of unconditional love.
Effective prevention of unplanned teen pregnancies that will result in
teenage motherhood will save the Nigerian society the cost she pays to
support a teen mother her children and grand children. It would also
break the cycle related to psychopathologies in our culture, including
drug and alcohol abuse, fetal alcohol syndrome, drug induced birth
defect, drops out of school, crime, domestic violence and poverty, for
all teenagers that become mothers, before they were prepared, the
society keeps paying the cost. This could be seen in most city centers
when some of such teenagers beg for alms. Others rely on the generosity
of members of the church or philanthropic society.
In Abia,
Imo Enugu and Anambra state, the problem of teenage pregnancies is
further compounding by the involvement of some fathers and advanced
adults in the inducements of teenage girls to feed the baby factories
with their offspring. Teenage pregnancy is linked with several issues
that include low educational levels, higher rate of poverty, and other
poorer outcomes in children of teenage mothers. Teenage pregnanc in most
developing countries is often outside marriage. This comes with certain
social stigma in many communities.
Drugs and alcohol that
remove inhibition can easily trigger and encourage unintended sexual
activities. It has not been comprehensively established that the drugs
themselves directly influence teenagers to indulge in risky behaviours,
or whether it is true that the teenagers that engage in drug use, are
more likely to indulge in sexual activities. This is premised on the
logic that correlation does not imply causation. The drugs that have a
strongest evident linkage in teenage pregnancies include alcohol,
ecstasy, cannabis and amphetamines.
Advance countries
of the world try to see that their young ones are given the best formal
education so that they can grow in knowledge, attitude and skills that
will bring about increase in productivity and technological
advancement, and in general economic growth and development. This
process of formal Education, which starts at very tender age of less
than one, is consolidated, when these persons are in their teens. Since
the brain and other learning faculties have been fully developed. Losing
these great human resources to unplanned pregnancies and teenage child
bearing is a minus to any economy.
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 4]
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