Teen Pregnancy Analysis
Teen pregnancy has become an increasing problem over the years. Parents, teachers and teens alike all fear for the same thing, teen pregnancy. In several studies the question always remain the same what is the cause of teen pregnancy other than the obvious answer, why is this continuing to increase over the years. Parents always feel that they were not strict enough. Teachers feel that the teens are either rebellious or that they did something wrong with their teaching. Teens feel all sorts of things that adults do not always understand.
The studies that will be discussed are focused on teens and what they feel the problem is that causes teens to become young mothers. The research process with the articles that I have chosen is surveying teens to find out the source of the problem. In these articles the goal is to find out the point of view of the teens and to come up with a solution to rising problem of teen pregnancy. The literature was reviewed by several peers and doctors to come up with the opinions and solutions that were revised in the article.
In this week’s reading of our text, it was discussed the importance of valid results, and not being biased to one side or another. It was discussed that results can differ from group to group of participants so making sure that the results are valid is important. Also, it is important to make sure that the sources are reliable as well. It would be wrong to ask parents only why they feel teen pregnancy is increasing so much being that teens are the ones involved in these studies.
The ethical considerations for data collection is not to violate the teens right to have their voices heard with out having to fear what their parents will know about their sex life. An article in the Apollo library titled “Rural teen pregnancy reflections who will Listen? ” discusses a study that was done on teens with surveying the teens in many different schools to find where this problem stems from. It is determined that most teens feel that they have a lack of information on teen pregnancy and sexual awareness, until hitting high school, which in many cases is too late to receive this information.
A series of questions were asked in survey form, teens felt they were receiving information too late and they were self educated themselves long before they learned it from school, or their parents. With media being as violent, and sexual content today that we did not have twenty years ago, kids are curious about sex at younger ages, some even in elementary school. The data that was collected was taken straight from the affected age and targeted different reasons that effect teen pregnancy.
They asked a question that was thought to be the reason and asked open ended questions as well meaning questions that do not have a yes or no answer but ones where the teens were forced to give their opinions. In this study the teen’s names were not given, the goal was not to know who the teens were, but to know what can be done to make the awareness of this problem known to teens and their parents. Another study that was performed in this article was on teen a parent who shows that many teen parents do not finish high school and live their adult lives in poverty.
Teens who have troubled homes are more likely to become teen parents looking for that security that they have lacked at home, building their own family will give them the love they desire in their mind but they are likely to neglect and or abuse their child or children not intentionally but just out of lack of knowing how to care for their child, when they are still children themselves. Another result of this study reviewed that most teen parents do not marry the father or mother of the baby and the ones that do end in divorce in most cases.
Many teen parents will be single parents within the first two years of the child’s life. The end result also proves that teens will have higher risk pregnancies and premature, under nourished babies will be born for lack of knowledge of how to take care of a baby in the womb. Another result of this is because the teen mother’s body was not ready for the change of having a baby. Many health problems in the child and mother’s life results from this as well such as possible asthma in the baby and osteoporosis at an early age for the mother.
There are many reasons found in these studies over a few weeks time that teens did not realize to be an issue. From the teens point of view the main issue that was found was that they are not aware of precautions from teen pregnancies and resources that are available to them such as free birth control from the local health department and teen counseling services to encourage practicing safe sex and abstinence as well as lack of information on how pregnancies happen. It has been proven from these studies that these discussion need to occur in middle school or even elementary school.
This study showed more statistics that have been proven throughout the years. The end result also proves that teens will have higher risk pregnancies and premature, under nourished babies will be born for lack of knowledge of how to take care of a baby in the womb. Another result of this is because the teen mother’s body was not in the child and mother’s life results from this as well such as possible asthma in the baby and osteoporosis at an early age for the mother.
In both studies, the results were determined by questionnaires to teens and teen mothers to determine what the cause of teen pregnancy in their mind was. There have always been theories that teens don’t care about using protection, or that they want to be pregnant but these studies have confirmed that this is not always the case. This case study was a hard one to do at first because teens do not want their friends to pick on them in school for their answers or that they participated so once the barrier was broken there, the case study could be done effectively.
The end result was successful because it gave teachers, parents, doctors and teens the tools they needed to change this. The hope is that over the next few years teen pregnancy will decrease dramatically. These health problems are caused because the teen mothers’ body is not fully developed so their body is not ready to bear the weight a pregnant women must bear. In conclusion, the data showed to be effective in both forms of research in both articles.
The first article took the approach of survey research for the targeted group which is teens to find a cause of the problem which seems to be a lack of communication between teens and adults, and also a lack of information soon enough for teens. In the other article medical research was done to prove that teen mothers are more likely to develop bone problems earlier in life as their bones were not ready for the pressure a pregnancy causes. Another source that was used in this analysis was the census of teen mothers that drop out of high school and live in poverty trying to upport their children. This trend seems to pass down the genetic line as these homes become problem homes as well and the teens just want love they lacked growing up. Therapy has proven to change this trend as the children of teen mothers need to know how to cope with living in poverty, feeling rejection from their fathers or mothers, and dealing with not seeing their parent as often as their peers as most teen parents work at least two jobs to provide for their children and still remain in poverty.
These problems are being addressed and teen pregnancy is estimated to decrease as more and more resources are becoming available to target teens and warn them of what it really is like being a teen parent. I feel that both of these articles give ample information to effectively make decisions on the studies because there are several teens involved as well as medical studies to support the analysis that was determined.
References:
Rural teen pregnancy reflections Who will Listen?(2013) retrieved from http://apololibrary .com
Teen pregnancy associated with future osteoporosis (2012) retrieved from http://apololibrary.com
