Report: Teen pregnancies up for first time in 15 years

[ismnotwasm]

*Sigh*


ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Teen pregnancies rose in the United States for the first time since 1991, the National Institutes of Health reported Friday.

Pregnant teens are less likely to get prenatal care and gain appropriate weight, experts say.

The new data also show that eighth-graders smoke less, according to the report "America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being 2008."
The report comes after a spate of high-profile teen pregnancies: that of 17-year-old TV star Jamie Lynn Spears, who recently gave birth to a daughter, as well as the pregnancies of numerous students at Gloucester High School in Massachusetts.
Federal health experts said they don't know why the teen pregnancy numbers went up from 2005 to 2006, and that not enough data have been collected to say whether it's a trend.
---Snip--

"A cutback in community resources for youth over the last eight years could help explain the increase in teen pregnancies, said Michele Ozumba, director of the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/07/10/teen.pregnancy/index.html

[MountainLaurel]

1. Ditto that sigh

Thank you abstinence-only education. :mad:

However, I also wonder what role the tanking economy is playing, whether girls on the margins are seeing their dreams of college and decent jobs slipping away. If getting to college is going to be a struggle in any case, for financial or cultural reasons (I grew up in a world where seeking college or anything beyond a "job" was considered getting above yourself among some families), and then the parent who was going to help finance that education loses a job and has to use your college fund for groceries, you might give up hope.

[bliss_eternal]

2. Dito that "thank you" to abstinence only education.

:(

I can totally relate to the world of seeking college or anything beyond getting a "job" was considered getting above yourself. I knew a lot of girls that constantly fought the duality within some families of "get an education" vs. "get a guy, have a family, etc."

[ismnotwasm]

3. It's horrible

Abstinence only. My God. One of the strangest and more destructive examples of RW ideology's lack of logical, workable solutions as well as sheer hypocrisy

I'm sure the economy does play part. I think if kids feel undervalued, or if what they perceive as valuable is out of reach, they tend toward acceptance and love where they find it. We know how hard those lessons are anyway in youth, how they dream and perceive the world. If a all a young woman is able to dream about is having a loving family of her own, well there you have it. The reality usually doesn't measure up and then you have a whole host of other problems.