Sex Education and Teenage Pregnancy

Sex education and teenage pregnancies are concepts deeply linked with each other. With sex education, the incidence of teenage pregnancy comes down. Latest studies suggest that comprehensive sex education not only leads to lowered teen pregnancies, but it does not increase sexual intercourse or sexually transmitted diseases. Let us understand the approach and the importance of these issues in detail.

Information about Birth Control

• Sex education stands effective if the knowledge of birth control pills and their usage are made clear to teenagers. This is evident from the Youth Risk Behaviour Survey (YRBS) carried out by Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in USA. 80 percent of lowered teen pregnancies have been reported to be caused by more effective practice of contraception techniques among them.
• In other words, education on contraceptives remains vital to effectively decrease the abortion rate. Most teenagers remain uninformed about the choices available and their effects.

Basic Information on Sex

• Sex education also involves determining what is to be considered an act of sexual behaviour. CDC’s YRBS has stated that 20 percent decline in teen pregnancy since 1991 has been due to better information about what is meant by sexual behaviour.
• Most teenage pregnancies happen due to a lack of knowledge of contraceptives. Reproductive health should be given prime importance while imparting sex education to teenagers.
• Teenage pregnancies can lead to dropping out of school and possibly a social stigma. Also, latest researches have concluded that most teenage mothers remain unmarried for a very long time.

Importance of Comprehensive Sex Education

• Latest research at University of Washington has established the importance of a comprehensive sex education compared with an abstinence-only education. In terms of teen pregnancy, it was reported that those who received comprehensive sex education, showed 60 percent lesser risk of getting pregnant in teenage.
• Comprehensive sex education is needed because at no point of time should a teenager be ashamed or embarrassed of taking medical assistance. Untimely abortions and stillbirths in cases of pregnancies that remain undetected until at a later stage can cause considerable damage to the woman’s reproductive system. Diseases such as anaemia and toxaemia can pose a permanent problem in some cases. This is because a teenager is not supposed to have completed her own period of growth. Therefore, premature conceiving of a child leads to a setback in the reproductive system which has not yet completely adjusted to the changes that the body is experiencing.

Teenage pregnancies should be handled with care. Parents and people around them should support them economically and emotionally. Otherwise, the trauma often leads to permanent psychological damage such as social phobia turning one into an extreme introvert. The achievement lies in making them become responsible in life and towards their own self.

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