Consequences Of Teenage Pregnancy

Nevertheless, teenage pregnancy is significant because of its global economic, social and health consequences that has eventually affected wide-reaching populations. Its continuous prevalence and impacts has brought global attention and concern upon it, because its consequences affects the global maternal and infant mortality rates. Estimations of 70,000 adolescent girls die each year in developing countries from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth (WHO, 2007). The tragedy does not end with the teenage mother but poses serious health risks to the infant’s life long process and are felt far beyond the walls of family homes, constructing a world vulnerable to poverty life. Once a teenage girl is pregnant, a lot of changes occur radically.

Such variations depend so much on the regional population of adolescents as well as their respective health determinants. According to the World Bank (2014) global trend of adolescent fertility rate is decreasing. This is because universal access to contraceptive methods has decrease the proportion of sexually active teens. Worldwide evidence shows high-quality sex education programs established, excessive proportion of adolescents utilizing modern effective contraceptives, free family planning services and low-cost emergency contraception being widely available for sexually active teens. Based on current projections to 2015, the adolescent birth rate fell from 59 births per 1000 women age 15–19 in 1990 to 51 births per 1000 in 2015 (WHO, 2015). However, teenage pregnancy trend varies in regional levels because of the variation of health determinants, population of adolescents and socio-cultural patterns. Much of the lifestyle, norms and economic status shapes the adolescent health outcome that significantly increases at one region and differs from the others. Child marriages is a primary source of income for most countries driven from poverty because of the challenging socio-economic statuses, yet hinders the opportunities for better education. Researchers claim that there is higher teenage pregnancy rate in developing regions compared to developed regions which is because it is proven that 95% of world’s adolescents are living in middle and low income areas of Sub-Saharan African and Western Pacific region. Sub-Saharan region has the highest adolescent fertility rate partaking 116 per 1000 girl’s age 15-19 years old, compared to the Western Pacific region with least rate of 13 per 1000 girls (WHO, 2007). This is because Sub-Saharan region exhibits a slower decline due to the fact that it encompasses large number of countries