As many people know, a growing number of teenage girls are becoming pregnant during their high school years. Each year, almost 750,000 teenage girls will become pregnant. Many of these pregnancies are unintentional, caused by teens who decide to try unprotected sex, or just sex at all. Many of us learn in health class that abstinence is the best policy for those teens who wish to be more successful in life. Although many of those people pay attention during that class that no one wants to be in, a significant number of them believe that they won't get pregnant because they don't want to. THIS IS NOT TRUE. If teens have sex, they CAN get pregnant. In 2005, 21 in 1,000 teenage girls became pregnant in high school. Another way to put this is that just under 1/3 of all girls will get pregnant during their teens, because they decided to take a risk.
Almost every teen gets "the talk" at some point during high school, where a speaker usually comes in to talk to them about sex, and the importance of staying abstinent until marriage. Yet teens regularly ignore these warnings and decide to try pre-marital sex, sometimes while still in high school, and they embark on the rough trail of teenage parenthood. Not only is this a strain on the parents, but the child also does not receive all the care it needs. The strain on the parents is very great, however. Of all the teens that become teenage parents, 2/3 will not complete high school, whether because they could not concentrate or so that they could provide for their new responsibility.
Thankfully, the message of abstinence is slowly but surely making its way into the minds of teenagers. Since the 1990s, teen pregnancy rates have dropped by almost a third. Hopefully this statistic will decrease even more in the years to come because of the abstinence programs being taught all over the country.
However, there are many ways to prevent teenage pregnancy. Fist and foremost, the one that is always 100% effective, is ABSTINENCE. Abstinence is waiting until marriage to have sex, whether to prevent pregnancy or STDs. Also keep an eye out for red flags that signal a chance for sexual contact, such as your boy/girlfriend asking you over to their house when no one else is home. Make sure you never leave yourself open to sexual contact unless you are married so you are not stuck in a relationship with someone who does not really want you or your child. If you are afraid you may be in a relationship based on sex, GET OUT before you find yourself or your significant other taking care of a baby 24/7.
For more statistics please visit: http://www.pregnantteenhelp.org/articles1.html
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hey ben, i am pretty sure that we are only in the year 2009, we haven't got to the year 19990 yet and we're not even close i dont think our planet will last that long. (sorry ben im justing kidding around and dont take it seriously that you made more than one typo but that proves that i read your blog on teen pregancies with all the statistics and the red flags and that the only way to stay un-pregnant is to be abstinent unless there is the situation of the "r" word but i thought i should go that far)
ReplyDeleteHey Ben,
ReplyDeleteGood job on the blog posting. I liked the way you backed up everything with some statistics, which made it easier to see the problem of teen pregnancy and how many teens decide carelessly to take such a risk. I was glad to see that since the 19990s (obviously you meant 1990s!) the rates of teenage pregnancies have dropped about 1/3, so that is an encouraging piece of data. I agree with you in hoping that all the classes about teaching abstinence over the years help kids wake up to the dangers involved instead of going in one ear and out the other.