|
pubmed:abstractText |
In an effort to provide the clinician with suggestions for preventive and remedial approaches to adolescent pregnancy, the nature, medical, social, economic, and psychological aspects of the problem are reviewed and discussed. While the rate of adolescent pregnancy is declining, there are more than 560,000 deliveries to teenagers annually. Medical risks are significantly diminished by early and comprehensive prenatal care. The major complications continue to be social and economic. Lower I.Q.s in offspring of adolescent mothers have been reported. Failure to complete high school significantly increases the risk of unemployment, trapping the premature parent and her offspring in a web of poverty. A lack of a sense of future and viable alternatives may legitimize the option of motherhood in the minds of many adolescent girls. Furthermore, an ignorance and a denial of sexuality combined with the developmental imperatives of experimentation and rebellion place the adolescent at high risk for pregnancy.
|
|
pubmed:otherAbstract |
PIP: The nature, medical, social, economic and psychological aspects of the problem of adolescent pregnancy are reviewed and discussed in an attempt to provide the clinician with suggestions for preventive and remedial approaches. Despite the fact that the rate of adolescent pregnancy is declining, there are more than 560,000 deliveries to teenagers annually in the United States. Early and comprehensive prenatal care significantly cuts down the medical risks. The major complications continue to be social and economic. A Johns Hopkins Child Development Study, which followed 4600 pregnant women and their offspring over a 12-year period, revealed that those children born to mothers initially 16 years of age or younger had lower intelligence quotient performances than the children of older women. Failure to complete high school has been found to significantly increase the risk of unemployment, trapping the premature parent and her child in a web of poverty. Among the most significant determinants of childhood pregnancy are the number of years the individual has been sexually active and whether or not she has used contraception. An ignorance and a denial of sexuality along with the developmental imperatives of experimentation and rebellion place the adolescent at high risk for pregnancy.
|
