Teenage Pregnancy

To understand which problems worry the first world countries the most of all today, it is usually enough to simply check the headlines in major newspapers. Although mass media tends to pay a lot of attention to one problem while completely ignoring others, still referring to them is a decent way to learn about the major social, political, or cultural issues. Today, along with news about diplomatic scandals, wars, epidemics, and economic crises, headlines are often dedicated to teen pregnancy, which is a real scourge of modern American society.

By teen pregnancy, experts usually understand it to be pregnancy among young women between the ages of 15 and 17 years. In 2013, on average, 13 teens out of 1,000 peers were pregnant. According to recent studies, teen pregnancies have declined in the United States, but the teenage representatives of some social and/or ethnic groups seem to be in the risk zone; for example, African American and Hispanic teens in the U.S. are two to three times more likely to become pregnant than Caucasian teens. Moreover, it is reported that nearly one in five teen births is a repeat birth, which means that pregnancy for these teens is not a first time occurrence (HealthCommunities.com).

But what risks do teenage to-be mothers face? In fact, being a teenage mother is truly difficult, even compared to regular pregnancy. For example, teens are at a high risk of not getting appropriate prenatal care, as they are often afraid to tell their parents about pregnancy, and cannot afford prenatal care themselves. Pregnant teens often get high blood pressure, or pregnancy-induced hypertension, as well as preeclampsia–much more often than pregnant women who are in their 20s or 30s. Teens are also more likely to give birth to premature babies, meaning that the pregnancies do not last for the regular 40 weeks; also, teenage mothers are exposed to higher risks of having low-birth-weight babies (usually 1,500 to 2,500 grams, and sometimes even less). A...