It is stress that drives a young teenager into a relationship. Confirmation that he has conceived a child causes him additional stress. She is too young to face this emotional challenge and can’t decide what to do about the pregnancy. Additionally, a large number of negative effects follow a teen pregnancy, one of the main ones being social stigma. This has been proven by plenty of research studies.
To go into detail about the traumatic effects of teen pregnancy-
(1) What is the age of a teenager? He is between the ages of 10 and 19. Getting pregnant at this age can be life-threatening. Mortality rates are four times higher for a pregnant adolescent in the 15-19 age range than for women ages 25-29. The fetus is also at increased risk. For girls in the 10-14 age range, it’s even worse. If they have live births, the baby is likely to die soon or face serious health problems.
(2) Teenage pregnancy makes it difficult for the girl to continue with her education. Therefore, the dropout rate is quite high. Even if they come from similar backgrounds, 61% of adolescent girls wait until the age of 20 or 21 to have babies and therefore complete high school. In contrast are those girls who give birth before reaching 18 years of age; only 41% graduate from high school.
(3) Even after giving birth, the young mother finds it difficult to keep up with her peers when it comes to academic performance. She is forced to repeat classes and exhibits poor scores on standardized tests. Ultimately, she may never graduate.
(4) Finding a regular source of income becomes difficult as each job position demands certain skills that are sorely lacking due to lack of proper education.
(5) The only alternative left after a teen pregnancy is to take public assistance, that is, go to welfare. Most of these adolescents are not married and more than 75% of them ask for support within five years of becoming mothers. Some researchers feel that poverty-stricken teens welcome pregnancy so they can get financial support from the child’s father; this is supposed to be a coping mechanism to escape hopeless poverty.
(6) Children born to parents so young often show retarded psychosocial development and malnutrition effects. This is because a teen mom lacks parenting skills. She doesn’t understand what her son needs and doesn’t realize the importance of smiling, touching, or communicating verbally with her son. Anger against society is vented on the child and physical abuse is possible.
(7) When they grow up, the youngsters of these ‘teenage mothers’ exhibit behavioral tendencies that are considered socially unacceptable. This is, in fact, the worst effect of a teenage pregnancy. The child can become a delinquent and end up in prison: the rate is three times higher for these children than for normal delinquents. The daughter may follow in her mother’s footsteps and become the victim of a teenage pregnancy herself.
