Blog Assignment Due 2/26

Mayra Sanchez

Professor Christina Santana

Writing Project #2

English 102

26 February 2013

Part 1

Proposal: Teenage Pregnancy and Prevention

In this paper I will explore the issue concerning teenage pregnancy and its effects often seen in my community.  I will also provide possible solutions for teenage pregnancy prevention which continues to be an on-going issue among adolescents in the United States. Although teen pregnancy has generally decreased since 1991, the United States still has a teenage birth rate that is nine times larger than other developed countries. Some of the factors found to lead to teen pregnancy are one or a mix of these: young age/unaware, prior school performance, economic disadvantage, having older partners in a relationship, and/or as a result of a single parent household. Although these factors cannot determine why teen girls are getting pregnant, they are significant explanations for this behavior.

Youth and lack of education about sex consequences are the main reason why teenage pregnancy occurs so frequently. Young girls and boys are not informed of the possible consequences pregnancy and child-birth can bring to their health. Teenage pregnancy often is unsupported by the family, and therefore adolescents do no obtain the proper prenatal support and medical supervision. During the first months of pregnancy, the most monitoring must be done with the development of the fetus. Keeping pregnancy monitored especially the first and last months of pregnancy can help prevent some birth defects. Young mothers are also more at risk of having high blood pressure during pregnancy than older women and are more likely to develop preeclampsia.

The Federal Policy and Legislation has increased advocating abstinence-only-till-marriage in schools rather than provide forms of contraception for adolescents and teenagers. Abstinence only education has proven to be ineffective for students to prevent pregnancy. Studies have shown a positive correlation between teen pregnancy and birthrates. Teaching student’s abstinence is not an effective technique to stop pregnancy since it does not provide help for students who chose not to be abstinent. Teenagers are not only at risk of becoming pregnant, but can also be prone to sexually transmitted diseases or infections (STI’s/STD’s). The United States not only ranks first in teenage pregnancy but, unfortunately we also rank highest in spreading of STD’s.

Teen pregnancy in the United States is most common within minority populations, such as Hispanics and African Americans. According to statistics, the 15-17 age group birthrates among African Americans are three times higher than Hispanics as Hispanic’s birthrates are four times higher than White adolescents. Parents also play a very important role in teenage pregnancy since parents in some cultures avoid talking about sex to their kids and ways to protect themselves from infections. Lack of communication is often seen in Hispanic families, where sex until marriage is the expected standard for all. Having parent pressure as well as religious and an abstinence-only education in school, creates a lot of uninformed minority population.

Teen pregnancy effects academic performance and high school completion. Based on the statistic, teenage mothers have a 10-12% less likelihood to graduate from high school compared to girls who do not have babies. Teenage moms also have 14-29% less probability of attending a higher education institution.        

Schools now are currently supporting students with School Based Health Centers (SBHC) which are supportive friendly community resources helping the prevention of teenage pregnancy. However as good as this resource is in terms of helping teenagers, only 40% of these sites are allowed to prescribe and dispense contraception methods for teenagers.

One of the things schools can do to decrease teenage pregnancy is to provide more interaction with programs like “Baby Think it Over”. This program allows students to care for a new-born like toy baby that is monitored for good care. Many schools provide this type of exposure to students to get students thinking of how their lives would be if that baby were theirs. However, in some low income schools students have to share a baby and are not allowed to take home for the weekend for practice. By having schools provide these babies only in classroom use and with a partner defeats the purpose this program tries to make. This approach however can have a biased effect since some don’t take the baby as serious as it should since it’s a toy.

To decrease teen pregnancy and transmission of STD’s in the United States, all schools should provide programs that help explain the issues and concerns associated with teenage pregnancy/prevention and provide information on how to practice safe sexual intercourse for those teenagers who do not want to practice abstinence. Schools should also provide places to go to obtain various types of contraception and make them accessible to students and perhaps free. By schools providing this type of help for its students, teenage pregnancy will eventually decrease and the spread of infections and diseases will control itself a little more. It is impossible to control the entire United States, but if each school provides this type of support a difference will definitely be seen.

Part 2

            This problem concerning teenage pregnancy pertains to the high school district I attended. Phoenix High School District is one of the largest high school districts in the country consisting of more than 26,000 students. Of these students, about 85-90% for which are Hispanic. In my Metro Tech High School graduating class this past spring, out of my ten closest friends in high school six or seven of them were pregnant or had been pregnant in our high school careers.

            One of my closest friends from high school is currently 19 and is a mother of two boys one of which is 3 and another which will soon be 1 year old. Although she was an example of achieving success, not all my friends had the same experience.

            Phoenix Union High School District has the power to enact my solution for providing pregnancy prevention classes and access to methods of contraception early into every student’s high school educational experience to avoid pregnancy or the spread of infections and diseases.

 Part 3

Dear Phoenix Union High School District Governing Board,

            As a Metro Tech High School recent graduate, I was able to notice some areas of improvement at Metro Tech High School as well as in the district. By observations, I was able to easily notice the amount of high school friends who were pregnant or had been pregnant by graduation. I was really surprised when I realized that half of my close friends have 1-2 babies or are currently pregnant.

            During my four years at Metro Tech, I never had been exposed to any type of sexual education class. The closest I ever got to that topic was in health class which we only covered information about STD’s but did not learn about contraception methods. During my freshman year in high school I remember having one class session that explained abstinence to students encouraging them to remain abstinent until marriage.

            However since it was only offered on a scheduled one time a year event, the students who did not attend school that day missed everything. Fortunately, students who were present were provided perhaps helpful information. My suggestion is for the district should take into consideration the high amount of pregnancies in the district and propose sex education in schools rather than sex prevention.

            Students should be required to take this course to graduate just as a regular high school graduation requirement which will be very beneficial for students. Since we cannot control student level of sexual activity or age of intercourse, what we can provide is beneficial education on pregnancy prevention and practicing safe intercourse.

Mayra Sanchez

Class of 2012

Metro Tech High School

References:

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5. Tingle, Lynne R. "Evaluation Of The North Carolina "Baby Think It Over" Project." Journal    Of School Health 72.5 (2002): 178. Academic Search Premier. Web. 26 Feb. 2013.