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Adolescent Pregnancy

ADOLESCENT PREGNANCY: A PROBLEM ANALYSIS

The purpose of this report is to present a detailed analysis of the societal problem of adolescent pregnancy. In addition to presenting descriptive data delineating the scope of the problem, its precursors, consequences, and salient relationships, the paper discusses the causes, future course of the problem and interventions designed to prevent teen pregnancy and/or assist pregnant teens deciding to keep their babies. The limitations of the problem analysis itself as a method of determining the general nature and parameters of the problem are discussed in the final section of the report.

Nature of the Problem: General Data

According to the National Research Council (1987), the teenage pregnancy rate in the United States is one of the highest in the world. The NRC reports that about 10 percent of all American teenage girls become pregnant with 13 percent having miscarriages, 40 percent deciding to abort, and the remaining 47 percent electing to have the baby with only about 6 percent of these deciding to put the baby up for adoption.

In terms of numbers, these percentages translate to a yearly teen pregnancy rate of one million girls (Tyrer, Rothbart & Anderson, 1989); of these, 30,000 are under the age of 15 (Wildey, 1987). Indeed, according to U.S. census data (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1990), while the number of livebirths to parents under the age of 20 has declined over the last several decades, the number of births to mothers between 10 and 14 years has nearly doubled in the same time period.

Yoos (1987) reports that adolescent pregnancies produce 700,000 live births per year with the majority of mothers deciding to keep and raise their children. this means that teenagers in the United States now bear and rear about one out of every six children.

The scope of the problem can best been seen through cross-cultural comparisons. In this regard, the United States had...

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Adolescent Pregnancy. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 09:07, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1691390.html