Teenage Pregnancy and the Adverse Birth Outcomes in Canada
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Teenage Pregnancy and the Adverse Birth Outcomes in Canada
Introduction
Teenage pregnancy, sometimes referred to as adolescent pregnancy, is a pregnancy that is contacted by a female who is below the age of 20 years (Ghose & John, 2017). Occasionally, pregnancy does take place through sexual intercourse immediately after the commencement of the ovulation process, but before the beginning of menarche (Leftwich & Alves, 2017). However, healthy pregnancies should take place after the menarche begins. Reports suggest that about 25 per 1000 families in Canada have teen mothers, indicating how prevalent is the act (Smith et al., 2018). Adolescent pregnancy has recently been considered as a social issue or problem based on its associated causes and consequences. For instance, it is more than often that teenage parenthood has caused the problem of social exclusion (Macleod & Feltham-King, 2019). In other words, there are higher possibilities that teenage parents will not be absorbed in the job market and academic institutions. Consequently, this might trigger poverty amongst the teenage expectants, leading to the birth of low-weight, or malnutritional babies. Inadequate education and lack of job opportunities may also drive the teenage parents to engage in activities such as toddling. As a result, their lives might be at risk due to the increased possibilities of getting childhood accidents.
Furthermore, Taylor (2017) stipulated that one of the critical causes of teenage pregnancy was drug use and abuse. Studies by Fernandes et al. (2017) found that substance use has a direct relationship with problem behavior in an individual. Whether it occurs at the family or society level, substance use has a range of impacts that would probably influence the success and discipline of young ladies. For example, it may cause a family breakup, and poor communication within the family, giving a lady the chance to freely interact with peers who might be ill-minded and tempted to engage in sexual intercourse. According to Wong et al. (2019), substance use may either cause family risk factors, or peer risk factors which might all contribute to early antisocial behaviors both indirectly and directly. Moreover, there is a high likelihood that teen mothers are more prone to develop mental health disorders due to prolonged stress, which may further cause suicidal ideations amongst them. Besides, teen mothers may have sleepless nights, difficulty in arranging for child care, the challenge of adhering to doctor’s appointments, and the problems of attempting to complete high school after the pregnancy, which may also facilitate mental health problems to them. Finally, socioeconomic status (SES) also plays a critical role in the increment number of adolescent mothers in Canada. Hanley et al. (2018) found that gap between the rich and poor in Canada was comparatively large, a fact that motivated most adolescents to engage in early sexual intercourse as a means of survival and keep up. Rationally, adolescents from low socioeconomic status in Canada tend to contact pregnancies at a higher rate compared to their counterparts from top socioeconomic status families. In other words, poverty is a detrimental factor towards the increased number of teen mothers in Canada, as it continues to expose young individuals to sexual risk behaviors.
Instinctively, the manifestations of a high prevalence rate of teen pregnancy make the act a severe issue in the whole country. According to Van Lieshout et al. (2019), the Canadian government spends about $11 billion yearly on teenage pregnancy. The funds are meant to aid the lives of teen mothers, who become unemployed forcefully, yet with mandates of maintaining their babies healthy throughout. Also, the funds are intended to cater for their education after delivering and taking the newborn babies to child care homes. Teenage pregnancy is a national problem in Canada because regardless of its high or low levels, the annual financial budget is directly affected (Van Lieshout et al., 2020). To revert the individual, social, and national problems caused by teenage pregnancy in Canada, it is imperative to use a meta-analysis approach. Gathering a series of data from different sources and making them consistent with another makes it possible and more comfortable for analysts to find the real causes and effects of teenage pregnancy (McShane & Böckenholt, 2017). Most importantly, performing a meta-analysis will help to determine the accurate statistics, with reduced errors (McShane & Böckenholt, 2017). More effective recommendations can then be proposed using the data to plan for future improvement by fixing down the fundamental gaps leading to adolescent pregnancy.
References
Fernandes, M. M. D. S. M., de Sousa Esteves, M. D., dos Santos, A. G., Vieira, J. S., & de Sousa Neto, B. P. (2017). Risk factors associated with teenage pregnancy/Fatores de riscos associados à gravidez na adolescência/Factores de Riesgo Asociados al embarazo en la adolescência. Revista de Enfermagem da UFPI, 6(3), 53-58. https://revistas.ufpi.br/index.php/reufpi/article/view/5884
Ghose, S., & John, L. B. (2017). Adolescent pregnancy: an overview. Int J Reprod Contracept Obstet Gynecol, 6, 4197-203. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Seetesh_Ghose/publication/320006421_Adolescent_pregnancy_an_overview/links/59d9e6c8aca272e6096bc20e/Adolescent-pregnancy-an-overview.pdf
Hanley, G. E., Park, M., & Oberlander, T. F. (2018). Socioeconomic status and treatment of depression during pregnancy: a retrospective population-based cohort study in British Columbia, Canada. Archives of Women’s Mental Health, 21(6), 765-775. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00737-018-0866-6
Leftwich, H. K., & Alves, M. V. O. (2017). Adolescent pregnancy. Pediatric Clinics, 64(2), 381-388. https://www.pediatric.theclinics.com/article/S0031-3955(16)41146-6/abstract
Macleod, C. I., & Feltham-King, T. (2019). Adolescent Pregnancy. Routledge International Handbook of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health.
McShane, B. B., & Böckenholt, U. (2017). Single-paper meta-analysis: Benefits for study summary, theory testing, and replicability. Journal of Consumer Research, 43(6), 1048-1063. https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-abstract/43/6/1048/2939541
Smith, C., Strohschein, L., & Crosnoe, R. (2018). Family histories and teen pregnancy in the United States and Canada. Journal of Marriage and Family, 80(5), 1244-1258. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jomf.12512
Taylor, M. A. (2017). Review of the Social Determinants of Health-Income Inequality and Education Inequality: Why Place Matters in US Teenage Pregnancy Rates. Health Syst Policy Res, 4(2), 52.
Van Lieshout, R. J., Savoy, C. D., Boyle, M. H., Georgiades, K., Jack, S. M., Niccols, A., … & Lipman, E. L. (2020). The mental health of young Canadian mothers. Journal of Adolescent Health. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X19308754
Wong, S. P., Twynstra, J., Gilliland, J. A., Cook, J. L., & Seabrook, J. A. (2019). Risk factors and birth outcomes associated with teenage pregnancy: A Canadian sample. Journal of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1083318819303237