Adolescent or teen pregnancy is any pregnancy in a female who is below twenty years of age. This may occur due to sexual intercourse after the beginning of ovulation. These young teenagers encounter most problems related to pregnancy as compared to other women. More so, for the teenagers below 15 years of age, there exist additional issues because they are not adequately developed to carry the pregnancy and to give birth. According to (Martin, 2018) , in the year 2017, a total of about 195377 newborn babies were born to young females of age fifteen to nineteen years, resulting in approximately 18.8 births per one thousand women in this group. The births to adolescent females from age 15 to 19 contributed to about 5.0 percent of the total births in the same year.
Approximately 9 out of 10 of these particular births happened outside marriage; this is almost eighty-nine percent. This new birth rates of 2017 have dropped by seven percent from the year 2016 when the rate of teen pregnancy was 20.4 percent (Martin, 2018) . It had also deviated by seventy percent from the year 1991 when it was the highest at 61.8 percent. In the past two decades, the rate of teen birth has decrease d drastically. However, the level of teenage pregnancies in the US is still higher when compared to that of other several developed nations such as England and Canada.
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Teenage pregnancy rates are substantially different depending on age, ethnic group, region of the nation as well as the racial group. According to (Martin, 2018) , most teenagers who get pregnant are eighteen and above years; in the year 2017, seventy-five percent of the total teen births were from 18 to 19 years females. The rate is also equivalently high among the blacks as well as the Hispanic teenagers when compared to their white peers. Pieces of evidence from the year 2013 indicates that 8 percent of young white females will get pregnant before their twentieth birthday, while sixteen percent, as well as seventeen percent of their blacks and Hispanic counterparts respectively, will get pregnant before they get to twenty years. The rate of teen pregnancy also differs depending on the state or region. The lowest rates of teenage births were from the Northeast region, while the highest rates were reported from the southern areas of the nation.
According to (Henshaw, 2017) , teenage births are associated with risks such as low weight during birth, pre-eclampsia, and premature labor. These pregnancies are also associated with social problems such as low level of education as well as poverty. Teenagers mostly do not look for medical care when they are pregnant; this results in moderate and severe complications. These complications may include toxemia, high blood pressure, and anemia and placenta previa. Also, teenage mothers are at a more significant threat of getting depressed when pregnant or even after giving birth. Delay in education is another consequence of adolescent’s pregnancy, education is paused when these teenagers’ get pregnant, and some of them will ultimately drop out of school or even seek an alternative learning institution.
The Office of Adolescent Health in the United States initiated a program known as Teen Pregnancy Program that is working to provide the much-needed resources and funding to prevent teenage pregnancies. It is a state program which provides funding to various organizations to prevent adolescent pregnancy across the U.S (Santelli, 2008) . OAH has invested in the implementation of programs as well as the development and assessment of innovative plans to curtail teenage pregnancies. The headquarters of OAH is located on 1101 Wotton Parkway, suite 700 in Rockville. Another agency working in the prevention of teenage pregnancies is the Department in charge of Family Planning. The department was established to offer contraceptive information and supplies through various programs to any teenager who needs with a higher priority given to individuals with low income, and it also provides counseling services to teenagers and adults on family planning. The head office is located on 200, Independence Avenue in Washington.
Despite the reported decrease in the rate of teenage pregnancies across the United States, adolescent pregnancies and births remain a critical problem facing leaning institutions, families, community as well as the medical fraternity across the country. These teenage both male and females require access to available teenage-friendly reproductive as well as contraceptive services, support from parents and adults in helping them to make healthy decisions on sex, birth control as well as relationships. Together with the community and the state-based agencies working in harmony, eventually the issue of teen births and pregnancies will be eradicated entirely. Working on this assignment has made me realize that with proper coordination and cooperation among the key players, this issue of teen births and pregnancies will come to an end. Communities, families, schools, healthcare providers and several agencies at the local or state level can all help in fighting this menace that is adversely affecting our young girls and destroying their future.
References
Henshaw, S. (2017). U.S Teenage Pregnancies, Births and Abortions among young women. Washington, DC: Guttmacher Institute.
Martin, J. (2018). Births: Final data for 2017. Hyattsville: National Center for Health Statistics.
Santelli, J. (2008). Explaining declines in teen births in the United States. American Journal on Public Health , 151-158.
