TEENAGE PREGNANCIES 

While teenage pregnancies are problematic for medical reasons, namely due to the mother’s own incomplete development, there are a number of social problems which can emerge due to a young teenager becoming pregnant.  A teenager who becomes pregnant will likely need to drop out of school.  Depending on the circumstances of pregnancy, if the mother is not or will not be married to the father, there will be less social support, and perhaps considerable stress and stigmatisation during her pregnancy and beyond.

Young women also have special nutritional needs as they enter their child-bearing years and need 10% more iron to compensate for loss of menstrual blood.  The healthy growth of a mother is critical to the health of her baby.  In other words, a young teenage mother who is not yet fully developed herself, will be unlikely to bear a healthy, normal weight baby.  The main factors related to low birth weight risk are the height, weight and iron levels of the mother at the time of conception.

The high rate of teenage pregnancies in some Pacific Island countries is perhaps symptomatic of other more fundamental and complex problems faced by youth, such as ignorance of sex and sexuality and a lack of information about contraception and safer sex.

Source: State of Pacific Youth Report 1998