Why teenage pregnancy?

Okay, so I want to explain why I am interested in the issue of teenage pregnancy in the United States….

First of all, I am interested in it because the United States has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy among all developed countries. In the United States, 750,000 teenagers per year become pregnant. This is three times higher than Canada and eight times higher than Japan (Hoffman and Maynard 1). Yeah, I know that is a shocking statistic, right? But anyways, another reason interesting fact is that after 1990 the rate of teenage pregnancy had actually been decreasing. It hit a plateau in 2000 and stayed about the same for awhile, until 2005. In 2005, it began increasing and was increasing for awhile. Although, recent research does show a decrease this year. However,I find it kind of strange that it had been low for so long, but then turned around and began increasing. And I think that it is important to make sure that it continues to decrease and not rise again! I was also interested because at my high school there was a high rate of teenage pregnancy, and I always knew it wasn’t a good thing….especially when very few of the teenage mothers originally in my graduating class did not end up actually graduating at all. I wanted to learn more about this issue! The main things I focused on finding out were……………….


1) What are the main causes of this issue?
2) What are the risks/consequences involved?
3) What are some solutions?

Teenage pregnancy has plenty of causes from sexual content in the media to lack of easy access to contraceptives to teenagers not being fully aware of the responsibilities of being a parent. Teenage pregnancy is also something that needs to be addressed because many risks are involved, such as health implications and behavioral issues.


In later posts, I am going to elaborate on everything I have learned about this issue & explore more about a solution I feel is really effective! However, for now I gotta get going! I have to study for statistics (…blah) Talk to you later!



Reference:

Hoffman, Saul, and Rebecca Maynard, eds. Kids Having Kids: Economic Costs and Social Consequences of Teen Pregnancy. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute, 2008. Print.