The sexual revolution has ushered in a period where the average adolescent faces tremendous pressures to have sexual experiences of all kinds. Today, Pinoy teens get a higher exposure to sex from the Internet, magazines, TV shows, movies, and other media than decades ago, yet without any corresponding increase in information on how to handle the input. So kids are pretty much left to other kids for opinions and value formation when it comes to sex. Sexual misinformation is, therefore, equally shared in the group. Parents at home and teachers in school feel equally inadequate or uneasy to discuss the topic of sex with youngsters. The problem mounts because the barkada has a more profound influence than parents do, exerts pressure and expects the adolescent to conform to the rest of the them.
According to the 2002 Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Study by the University of the Philippines Population Institute (UPPI) and the Demographic Research and Development Foundation, 26 percent of our Filipino youth nationwide, from ages 15 to 25 years old, admitted to having a pre-marital sex experience. What’s worse is that 38 percent of our youth are already in a live-in arrangement.
The 1998 National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) reveals that 3.6 million of our teenagers (that’s a whopping 5.2 percent of our population!) got pregnant. In 92 percent of these teens, the pregnancy was unplanned, and the majority (78 percent) did not even use contraceptives the first time they had sex. Many of the youth are clueless that even on a single intercourse, they can wind up pregnant.
There are many reasons why teen pregnancies should be avoided. Here’s a lowdown on the facts:
Risk for Malnutrition
Teenage mothers tend to have poor eating habits and are less likely to take the recommended daily multivitamins to maintain adequate nutrition during pregnancy. They are also more likely to smoke, drink, or take drugs during pregnancy, which can cause health problems for the baby.
Risk for Inadequate Prenatal Care
Teenage mothers are less likely to seek regular prenatal care which is essential for monitoring the growth of the fetus, keeping the mother’s weight in check, and advising the mother on nutrition and how she should take care of herself to ensure a healthy pregnancy. According to the American Medical Association, babies born to women who do not have regular prenatal care are four times more likely to die before the age of one year and seven months.
Risk for Abortion
Unplanned pregnancies lead to a higher rate of abortions. In the US, nearly four in 10 teen pregnancies (excluding those ending in miscarriages) are terminated by abortion. There were about 274,000 abortions among teens in 1996.
In the Philippines, although abortion is illegal, it would shock you to know that we even have a higher abortion rate (25/1,000 women) compared to the US, where abortion is legal (23/1,000 women). For sure, there a lot more abortions that happen in our country that are not even reported. Backdoor abortions are resorted to with untrained hilots with questionable sterility procedures, increasing the possibility of tetanus poisoning and other complications.
Risk For Fetal Deaths
Statistics of the Department of Health (DOH) show that fetal deaths are more likely to happen to young mothers, and that babies born to them are likely to have low birth weight.
Risk For Acquiring Cervical Cancer
The human papillomavirus (HPV) is a sexually-transmitted, wart-forming virus that has been implicated in causing cancer of the cervix. This is the most common cancer in women, next only to breast cancer. Women who are at increased risk for acquiring this are those who engage in sex before 18, have a pregnancy at or younger than 18, or have had at least five sexual partners, or have had a partner with at least five sexual partners. If you start sex at an early age, you have a higher likelihood of going through several sexual partners before you settle down, thus increasing your exposure to acquiring the virus and acquiring cervical cancer. The men can get genital warts from this virus and can certainly pass it on to their partners, thus increasing her risk for cervical cancer. Using the condom does not confer protection against acquiring this virus since the condom cannot cover the testes where the warts can grow and proliferate.
Risk for Your Baby
Children of teen moms also face negative health, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes. This may result from lack of maturity and emotional quotient or simply from ignorance due to a lack of life’s experiences.
Children born to teenage mothers are less likely to receive proper nutrition, health care, and cognitive and social stimulation. As a result, they may have an underdeveloped intellect and attain lower academic achievement.
Deterrents To Teen Pregnancy
Here’s what can be done to help our teens avoid getting pregnant:
• Keep them at home with an intact family setup. The social institutions surrounding the youth jointly form a web of influence that either shields or lays them open to the lure of sexual risk-taking. The family is one such social institution. An intact family with both parents raising the child was found to be correlated to less risk-taking behavior by teens. Those who left home early or were raised by separated parents were noted to engage in sex early and other risk-taking behaviors. Family supervision and a stable parental union are definitely associated with lesser chances of engaging in premarital sex.
• Keep them in school. The other social institution that shields the youth from engaging in risk-taking behavior is the school. Leaving school at an early age makes the young more vulnerable to having their first sexual experience outside marriage.
• Keep talking to them. Increased parental communication consistently predicted a decrease in the likelihood of young Filipinos engaging in sexual risk-taking activities. It has been found that the mother, in particular, has a special role because monitoring by the mother as well as communication lines with her daughter were found to be associated with less frequent intercourse and fewer sexual partners.
• Keep them morally and spiritually grounded. Over 80 percent of the 502 teens in the September poll told researchers that religion is important in their lives. Regardless of gender or race, survey results revealed that teens who attend religious services frequently are less likely to have permissive attitudes about sex. Orienting them with the proper values early helps them imbibe these in their lives and keeps them from succumbing to peer pressure.
Preventing teen pregnancies requires a concerted effort on the part of parents, the school, and government to insure that right information is transmitted to the children even during their pre-teen years and that they are well-monitored and supported emotionally and psychologically. We can’t watch what our kids do all the time, but then again, we won’t have to if they are equipped to make better decisions for themselves.
* * *
(Dr. Rebecca B. Singson holds clinics at the Makati Medical Center and at the Asian Hospital and Medical Center. E-mail 0bmd@surfshop.net.ph or call 892-7879 or 771-9204).