What Pregnant and Parenting Teens Go Through: Must Known Fact

There are lots of teens out there who are pregnant and some are already a parent, there so many challenges these group of people face life that really affect how they desired to live their life. Pregnant and parenting teens have needs that are unique to the developmental stages of adolescence, in addition to the needs common to all pregnant women, mothers, and fathers.

Research shows that teenage pregnancy is associated with medical-related risks for the teen mother and infant and developmental risks for the growing infant. When compared to their older counterparts and their children, teen mothers and their infants are more likely to experience poor clinical outcomes such as pre-term delivery, anaemia, low-birth weight, and infant mortality.Multiple studies also demonstrate that children born to teenage mothers perform more poorly on various developmental assessments and academic achievement measures in areas of reading comprehension, mathematics, and vocabulary tests compared to children of adult mothers.

While some members of the general public have the misconception that pregnancy-related complications and outcomes experienced by teen mothers and their children are caused by age-related biological factors, research suggests otherwise

In addition to the aforementioned medical risks, teen parents face a wide range of challenges on their way to becoming successful, contributing adults and parents. Some of these obstacles are related to interruptions in their education that may lead to challenges in obtaining a high school diploma and decreasing their chances of attending college. Lack of higher education limits a teen parent’s career options and increases their risk for living in poverty.

Furthermore, teenage fathers are more likely to face economic and employment challenges than adult fathers, which negatively affects their ability to financially support their children. In a number of cases, many teen fathers are absent and unable to financially support their children, increasing the difficulties that teenage mothers face with parenting.

Source of this information: NACCO