Is Teenage Pregnancy Bad?

There's this girl I know, lets call her Bre. Bre has a boyfriend who is about 4 years older than her and she is only 16 years old. She had been going out with her boyfriend for the past 2 years and knew that she loved him with all her heart. One night she thought she was ready to have sex and had sex with him but stupidly her boyfriend did not use a condom and little did she know about using protection. Since it was her first time having sex she thought it was the most amazing thing that ever happened to her, but after taking sexual education she realized she could have gotten pregnant and got scared so she went to a store and got a pregnancy test. When no one was home she went to the bathroom and nervously waited for the result to come out. She looked at it and almost fainted because it was positive and she didn't know what to do, how to tell her parents and her boyfriend. Ofcourse she told her boyfriend first and they were all scared but after she talked it over with him they wanted to keep it. The most difficult part was telling her parents. She brought them together and sat them down. She didn't know know to say it so she just spit it out. It turned out not to be so bad after all, they helped her and told her what to do and what not to do. Even she did not like it she had vitimans and ate healthier. After 9 months had past her parents helped her out on what she needed but did not take after her child, because it was her fault she had to feed her baby, wash her, cloth her, changer her, etc. Five years past and Bre had gotten her GED and lives with her child and her boyfriend.

About 720,000 teenagers get pregnant from the ages 15-19 but only 420,000 give birth. The other ones are lost with miscarriages, stillbirths or abortions. One in 8 births in the United States are teens. Three out of 10 teens get pregnant before they reach the age of 20 and 22-33% of girls under the age of 18 who have had babies are most likely to get another baby 2 years after her first one. Out of all the teens who get pregnant the ones who are 18-19 years of age give 67% of the births. But the birth rate has been steadily dropping since 1991 but it starting to rise since 2004. People do not know if it is just temporary or if its a new start.

There are a lot of birth risks to a teenage birth. Teens are more likely to give birth prematurely, like before 37 complete weeks of pregnancy. In 2002 from 2004 the preterm birth rates averaged 14.3% for teenage girls under the age of 20, their babies get an increased risk of newborn health problems, longterm disabilities and even death. So if teens were to smoke, drink, or take drugs a baby will most likely be born with health problems like low birth weight. Another risk they lead to is pre-mature birth or stillbirth (when a baby dies in the womb). Of all teen pregnancies 51% end up giving life birth, 35% get abortion and 13% are due to fetal loss. Children born to teenage mothers are less likely to receive proper nutrition, health care, and cognitive and social stimulation.

What are the causes of them getting pregnant? A lot of teens like to have too much fun because of all the stress they go threw. The girls are the ones who get the most responsibility with the babies, but its not entirely there fault. The dad was the one who gave her the sperm and wasn't being careful (not using protection). But that is not the only cause of young women getting pregnant, they go out and drink, black out and get raped; get sexually assulted, and not using protection.

Its easy to prevent getting pregnant. A lot of teens say they're using birth control and protection but it still doesn't protect them from HIV/AIDS and STDs. The one most effective way not to get pregnant is abstinance.

Getting pregnant is not a bad thing for teens to me, but a lot of other people think it's a sin. It saves culture and the way things go in a little community. A lot of my friend have gotten pregnant but I want to save getting pregnant until I'm married that way I don't have to have kids who have a lot of different fathers. If I were to get pregnant at a young age I would set it up for adoption because I was adopted and it was the best for me because my biological mother had a lot of kids starting from being a teenager, and now all of us have different fathers. My opinion about getting pregnant as a teen and being bad is if only the teen was forced to have sex and ending up getting pregnant and the mother of that teen wouldn't let her daughter get abortion because they were totally against it.