The Child Within a Child: A Gift or a Curse? Essay Example

The discourse about teenage parenthood persists today, despite many government measures and campaigns to curb the same. As of 2011, the United States was the leading developed nation regarding teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases (Stranger-Hall & Hall, 2011). Based on the most recent estimates by Kost, Maddow-Zimet & Arpaia (2017), statistics show a gradually decreasing trend in the number of teen pregnancies since 1990, with 2013 data showing the least rates. However, society is not out of the woods yet. The issue of teen pregnancy continues to disturb the lives of young teenagers with Finer & Zolner (2011) reporting that over 80% of pregnancies for women aged 19 years and below were unintended. This paper discusses teen pregnancy as a common problem among adolescents. The paper outlines the prevalence and etiology of teen pregnancy and discusses the potential impact of various adolescent developmental stages on teenage pregnancies. Further, the paper examines concerns for adolescents' future well-being in light of teen pregnancies and outlines possible therapies for tackling the issue. Taking note of the international inalienable right to life this paper argues that, while a child within a child is a gift to the society, there is a need for a comprehensive societal effort to reduce teen pregnancies since the advantages of delayed pregnancy far outweigh the repercussions of teen pregnancy.

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UNICEF (2008) defines teenage pregnancy as a condition in which a young girl, usually between thirteen and nineteen years, is pregnant - intentionally or unintentionally. The term teenage pregnancy also refers to pregnancy among young women who have not attained a legal adulthood status. The organization reports that globally, there are about 1.8 billion adolescents between ages 10 - 25, and adds that most of this population become sexually active before they attain 20 years. Teenage pregnancy and subsequent teenage mothering became a social and public health concern in the United States since the late 1970s when research showed a spike in the number of unmarried teen births and pregnancy (Smithbattle, 2018). Recently, with reports indicating that there are about 14 million live births to young women - both married and unmarried - between ages 15 to 19 years (UNICEF, 2008), there is a need to discuss the prevalence of teen pregnancies.

In the United States, teen pregnancy statistics show a significant continuous decline in teen pregnancies since 1990. Nevertheless, the United States continues to lead in the number of teen pregnancy rates among developed nations (Holcombe, Peterson, & Manlove, 2009; Sedgh et al., 2015). When considering the age brackets, there are higher rates of teen pregnancy among 18-19-year-old bracket than the 15-17-year-old bracket. As of 2000, teen pregnancy rates in the U.S. stood at about 83.6 births per 1,000 women in the 15-19-year-old age bracket (U.S. Teenage Pregnancy Statistics, 2004).

Kost, Maddow-Zimet, & Arpaia (2017) recently published teen pregnancy statistics for the years 1973-2013. The statistics reported that in 2013, there were about 456, 000 teen pregnancies in the United States. About 448,000 pregnancies belonged to teenagers between 15 - 19 years while 7,400 pregnancies belonged to teenagers below the age of 14. Subsequently, the rates for various age groups per 1,000 women were: 76, 21, and 4, for the age bracket 18-19, 15-17, and less than 14 years, respectively. These rates marked the lowest recorded levels of teen pregnancies since 1990 (Kost, Maddow-Zimet, & Arpaia, 2017).

The Office of Adolescent Health (2016) however reports lower rates of teen pregnancies in 2016, noting that there were 20.3 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 years. Further, the office reports that about 17 percent of the teen births mentioned above were to women who had had at least one birth before. However, noting that these statistics refer to births, one should not take them conclusively as the data does not account for abortions and miscarriages which would have otherwise inflated the teen pregnancy data.

Finally, regarding race, there was a general decline in teen pregnancy among women aged 15-19 years across all races, i.e., Black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white groups. For Hispanics, the birth rate in 2013 stood at 61 births per 1,000 women, while that for Blacks and non-Hispanic whites stood at 76 and 30 births respectively among women aged 15-19 years (Kost, Maddow-Zimet, & Arpaia, 2017). The contrasting disparities in birth rates among different races and age brackets warrant a review of the etiology of teen pregnancies.

The etiology of teen pregnancies presents as a factor of several variables. DeRidder (1993) groups these factors under psychological, academic, biological, and social variables. As such, the author notes that "the interaction of these factors, from birth to adolescence, sets the stage for most teenage pregnancies" (DeRidder, 1993). Further, according to Sanders (2013), research findings somewhat concur with DeRidder's (1993) classification of variables and point out that an adolescent's developmental stages - physiological, cognitive, sociological and emotional - have a potential to influence teen pregnancy. Firstly, the DeRidder (1993) notes that the academic experiences of teenagers may result in stress and limitations which may lead to teenage pregnancies. In school, academic under-achievers with poor basic skills are more likely to get pregnant than their counterparts with average basic skills (Selden, 1990 cited in DeRidder, 1993). Relatedly, Bonell et al., (2003) note that teenagers with a negative attitude towards school had higher chances of early sexual activity (by age 16) and early parenthood (by age 20).

School plays a significant role in the cognitive development of a child. Teenage girls, according to Piaget's theory of development, fall in the formal operational stage where abstract thought, logical problem-solving, deductive reasoning, and metacognition emerge. According to Sanders (2013), adolescents at this age may "experience a personal fable as a result of being able to think more abstractly." Such personal fables may lead to risky behaviors as adolescents try to portray a specific image to their peers - whether real or imaginary. Additionally, there is a propensity for adolescents to derive greater emotional satisfaction in risky behavior. To this end, poor cognitive development may not allow adolescents to critically evaluate their sexual activity choices and hence lead to teen pregnancies.

Secondly, adolescent psychosocial development may also play a role in teen pregnancies. Sanders (2013) notes that at this stage, adolescents develop autonomy and strive to establish their identity. Autonomy results in less dependence on parents and increased interactions with peers, from which social learning occurs. As social learning theory holds, individuals can learn new behaviors by observing and imitating others. To this end, peer groups play a significant role in the molding of sexual behaviors for young adolescents and also in the occurrence of unintended pregnancies following peer activities such as binge drinking.

Further, this observation extends to and significantly affects households experiencing a previous teen pregnancy. According to Wall-Wieler, Roos, & Nickel (2016), there is a high likelihood of a teenage girl becoming pregnant between 14 and 19 years in a household where at least an elder sibling experienced teenage pregnancy. Consequently, research shows that less parental monitoring at this stage, especially for single-parent families, correlates with higher risk behaviors among adolescents (Hoskins, 2014). These observations point out to the likelihood of occurrence of teen pregnancies.

Finally, although there might be other factors that may lead to teen pregnancies such as sexual abuse, age at first intercourse (Domenico & Jones, 2007), sexism culture (Cusick, 1987), and socioeconomic factors (Raj et al., 2010), the influence of modern/new media on adolescent sexual activities cannot go unnoticed. Today, most adolescents have access to new media where they get access to sexual content of varying magnitude. Teenage interaction with the new media today, especially with sexual content, has the potential of invoking and reinforcing sexualized behavior among sexually inexperienced teenagers. Further, such reinforced behavior can accelerate sexual activity or increase the intensity of risky sexual activity for sexually experienced teenagers (Collins, Martino, & Shaw, 2011). If the society fails to tackle the issue of teen pregnancy in time, teenage girls stand to incur several physical, social, emotional, and economic disadvantages as highlighted hereafter.

Teenage pregnancy is associated with some adverse physical and health outcomes for the teenage mother. Teenage mothers are at high risk of suffering from health conditions that could complicate birth or even lead to death in severe cases. The first physical condition is maternal anemia. Anemia is a condition in which there is a deficiency of iron in the body. This condition occurs due to a lack of sufficient vitamin B12 and folic acid in the body. Similarly, blood disorders such as sickle cell diseases that are often inherited could result in maternal anemia (Samano et al., 2018). A pregnant teenager suffering from anemia may experience symptoms such as fatigue, feeling dizzy, shortness of breath and difficulty in breathing, pale lips, nails, and skin, and difficulty in concentrating. The risk of suffering from anemia during pregnancy is the premature birth, as well as the low birth weight of the baby. Additionally, the condition could be passed on to the unborn baby, who may be born with anemia or experience delays in development that may be prominent throughout their childhood (Samano et al., 2018)).

The second health risk is High Blood Pressure. High Blood Pressure is evident when pressure level is higher than 140 mm Hg systolic or 90 mm Hg diastolic. High Blood Pressure during pregnancy is also known as gestational hypertension and could threaten the life of both the mother and the baby. The condition may change from mild to severe and lead to the damage of the pregnant mother's kidneys as well as other vital body organs. Also, gestational hypertension could result in premature birth, low birth weight, or cause preeclampsia which poses a threat to the life of the mother and the baby (Hechtman, 1989). Teenage pregnancies also lead to a high risk of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) (Hechtman, 1989). Teenagers experience raging hormones that may lead them to experiment their sexuality with multiple partners. This experimentation may not only result in teenage pregnancy but also increase the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases which may be harmful to both the teenager the unborn baby (Hechtman, 1989).

Conclusion

The social effects of teenage pregnancy on the client's future well-being include lack of social support, poor relationship with the baby's father, and discrimination, stigmatization, and shame. According to Salvador et al., (2016), many teenage mothers live in isolation due to the fear of associating with others and the difficulty in maintaining relationships. As such, they tend to overestimate their support networks during pregnancy until reality hits them after giving birth since, after birth, they receive less social support than they did during pregnancy. With regard to the relationship with the father of the baby, most teenage mothers can hardly sustain a working relationship with the father of the child. In the same vein, Salvador et al. (2016) suggest that only a few of the teenage mothers are willing to sett...