By Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer
ALTHOUGH THERE has been a reduction in teenage pregnancies during the past three years, the National Family Planning Board (NFPB) tells The Gleaner that the number of teens becoming parents at an early age in Jamaica remains high.
"This is still a concern, especially in rural areas. What is of even more concern is that only one-third of these teenagers go back to school," a counsellor from the board said.
According to statistics from the Registrar General's Department (RGD), 5,249 girls aged 15-19 years had their first child in 2003, down from 6,245 in 2002 and 7,395 in 2001. The RGD figures revealed that 1,328 girls in that age group became parents for the second time last year compared to 1,517 in 2002 and 1,730 in 2001. In 2003, 21 girls had their fourth child before they reached their 19th birthday.
The counsellor says the NFPB has several programmes directed at youth who might be sexually active. These include the 'Teen Seen' show which airs weekly on Television Jamaica; in-house counselling at the NFPB's Sylvan Road office in Kingston and the issuing of family planning literature in schools. Despite this, the counsellor says the decline in teen pregnancies is not as significant as the NFPB would like.
"We don't know if the information is reaching them. So we try and work with parents to speak with their children. It's better for them to hear from parents than peers who are not experienced."
She says that many of the teenage mothers who go to the NFPB for counselling are usually high school students or from inner-city communities.
IMCOMPLETE EDUCATION
More than 50 per cent of teenagers who drop out of school each year after becoming pregnant do not return to complete their education. "We need to take a serious look at what is happening to these girls who are not getting back into the education system," Beryl Weir, executive director of the Women's Centre Foundation, told a Gleaner Editors' Forum at the company's North Street offices earlier this year.
Mrs. Weir had said there is a greater propensity for a second pregnancy when girls who drop out of school do not receive the required professional intervention to help to build esteem and assist them in achieving educational goals.
Interestingly, teen mothers almost doubled the reproduction rate of their counterparts in the
20-24 and 25-29 age groups. In 2003, the 20-24 group gave birth to 3,875 children, down from 4,459 the previous year while women in the 25-29 age bracket accounted for 1,517 births, 503 less than 2002. The NFPB counsellor believes the baby boom among women in those groups is also high. Fifteen of the mothers in the 20-24 batch gave birth to their sixth child last year; 230 of them in the 25-29 group became mothers for the sixth time.
"What usually happens when they start having babies early, many of them become dependent on men and develop different relationships, and these men usually want a child. This becomes a cycle and by the time a lot of these women are 32 they have six
children for different men and feel that they have wasted their lives," she explained.
The NFPB counsellor says planned parenthood is strongest among older women, many of them professionals, who prefer to have children once they are financially secure. There were 214 first-time mothers aged 35-39 in 2003, a drop from 287 in 2002 and 289 in 2001. There were 38 births by women in the 40-44 age group in 2003, 27 less than 2002. There were only three recorded births in the past three years by women aged between 45 and 49.
