How to Handle a Teenage Pregnancy
I think as adults most of us would say how could a teenager possibly see a pregnancy as anything except a bad thing. And you see it in Sahara; I see it very often teenagers tend to focus on the positive aspects of getting pregnant. A lot of teenagers see having something to love especially if you have a teenager that’s lonely and maybe doesn’t feel like they have that for themselves, in their mind I'm going to have a baby and I'm going to have somebody to take care of and that’s going to be mine. And that’s very big factor for teenager especially of teenagers that may come from a home where they don’t feel love, they don’t feel attention and this pregnancy may almost be a way out for them.
You also see that Sahara is living with her boyfriend which obviously means that this relationship was very important to her. And a lot of times teenagers look at pregnancy as a way to hold to a relationship, to keep a relationship going that at the moment maybe the most important thing in the world to them.
However, what also happens is that Sahara then goes on to see all the things that she thought might be positive about being pregnant really they're not as great as she though they were. Her life as a teenager as she knew it is basically over, she says it. I don’t get to go out, I don’t get to party and even when she talks about her relationship she may have thought this would help, obviously she and her boyfriend who stayed involved they fight and really their life evolves around this baby.
So I think what happens a lot of times to these teenagers is that they don’t really grasp the reality of what it means to be pregnant until it actually happens and they're in the situation.
Sahara was 17 years old out of her house and living with her 21 year old boyfriend and that’s definitely something that’s been shown to be a risk factor for getting pregnant as a teenager. Teenagers who have partners that are more than four years their senior are the greater risk of getting pregnant. And these little warning signs are a message to parents. If you see your child with an older boyfriend wanting to move out of the house or sort of getting involve in relationship that seems too much and too important for them, you're probably right as a parent to kind of step in and have their teenagers step back and maybe get a little bit of perspective to try and prevent what we end up happen to Sahara who actually gets pregnant.
The risk of pregnancy in African-Americans and Hispanics are almost two times that of non-Hispanic whites. However, across the board there are less teenagers getting pregnant and that’s a good thing and that tells us that our prevention messages are working and the teenagers are hearing us.
Talking to your teenager about sex, talking to your teenager about birth control pills does not make them more likely to have sex, does not make them engage in that behavior. The best thing you can do for your teenager and the best thing you can arm them with is with the information because the reality is if you don’t bring it up to them they're getting it from somewhere else. They're getting it from their friends; they're getting it from the media and maybe getting it from a place that’s not giving them accurate information.
As a parent and as a physician, we’re in the position to give them the right information so that when they need to make that decision they have all the information they need to make the decision that will keep them safe and keep them protected.
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