Teenage pregnancy

Marion Stevens, treatment monitor with the Health Systems Trust, reflects on adolescent sexual and reproductive healthcare during Youth Month.

With June being Youth Month, it's important to consider and reflect on the area of adolescent sexual and reproductive healthcare. This is an area that is often ignored as we grapple with the reality that adolescents are choosing tobe sexually active, but cultural practices often limit open communication about sex with our cllildren. As nurses we have a responsibility to provide care of adolescents' sexual health, which also includes the results of unplanned pregnancies,abortion, spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV and maternal mortality and morbidity.

An information campaign hopes to empower communities in Ekurhuleni to be aware of responsible sexual practices.

JOHANNESBURG, 6 March 2007 (IRIN) - Alarming figures released by a South African provincial education department indicate that schoolgirl pregnancies have doubled in the past year, despite a decade of spending on sex education and AIDS awareness.

Government research has poured cold water on claims that people are reluctant to take medicine in case they lose their disability grants and that child support grants encourage teenage girls to fall pregnant.

Of the ten countries in the world that have the worst rates of child mortality, six* are in West Africa - a region that has seen more than its share of repression and civil strife over recent years.

Geneva - Some 90 million girls are being excluded from primary schools around the world because of outdated stereotypes defining a female's place as in the home and social pressures for early marriage, the United Nations said.

Prevention of unwanted adolescent pregnancy through effective contraceptive use is a national health priority. The aim of this research was to contribute towards such improvements in services in the Northern Province through developing in-depth understandings, from the perspectives of teenage women and clinic nurses, of: barriers to effective contraceptive use and how to overcome these teenagers contraceptive-seeking practices teenagers perceptions of methods and side-effects and perceptions of adolescent sexual activity and pregnancy. Qualitative methods were used and the research was conducted around Pietersburg (mainly in semi-rural areas). Thirty-five in-depth, semi-structured interviews and 5 group discussions were held with adolescent women, recruited from clinic waiting-rooms and schools, and nursing staff in 14 clinics were also interviewed.

Promoting reproductive health is a priority issue in South Africa. Many reproductive health services are poorly developed and inaccessible to those most in need. This is reflected by high rates of other largely preventable conditions such as STDs, teenage pregnancy, cervical cancer, unsafe abortion and ill-health related to pregnancy and child birth.