Early pregnancy occurs in girls and adolescents.
Early pregnancy is a pregnancy that occurs in girls and adolescents . Beginning with puberty , the process of physical changes begins that turns the girl into an adult capable of sexual reproduction . This does not mean, however, that the girl is ready to be a mother.
Specifically, there are many negative consequences that a child of this age has when she becomes pregnant. Among them we could highlight, for example, a brutal emotional change that leads to depression and also a break in her life up to that point. And they must face not only an adult burden, such as having a child , but also seeing their educational, work or life projects paralyzed.
All of this in turn means that the baby that is born may be subject to the mother's physical and mental problems, which ultimately means that he or she has to face pathologies such as blindness , poor training or various delays. psychics.
Early pregnancy and public health
According to various studies, early pregnancy is increasingly common. It is a priority problem for public health due to the high risk of mortality that it usually presents. Babies of teenage mothers generally have low birth weight and are often premature.
Early pregnancy is linked to a certain social situation, which combines the lack of education in matters of reproduction and sexual behavior, the lack of awareness of one's age and other factors, such as poverty (which forces one to live in situations of overcrowding, for example). In many cases, early pregnancy is even linked to rape.
And all this without forgetting other causes that are also among the main causes of so-called early pregnancy. Thus, among them are also the consumption of all types of drugs, a lack of adequate role models for young people, violence within the family and the influence of living in an environment where it is common for women to become pregnant at a very young age. early.
Contraception methods help prevent early pregnancy.
Family and social condemnation
It is common for early pregnancy to be condemned at the social and family level. The pregnant teenager is seen as "guilty" of an "unwanted" situation, which is why she is usually discriminated against and does not have the support she needs.
For this reason, specialists insist that the precocious mother must have the assistance of the family and be accompanied during visits to doctors and in care.
Prevention of early pregnancy
In any case, doctors emphasize that it is necessary to work on the prevention of early pregnancies, with awareness campaigns, sexual education and the free distribution of contraceptive methods.
We can say that there are three major stages of assistance that combine prevention and care:
- Primary . It consists of developing all types of measures, fundamentally educational and social, to prevent early pregnancy from occurring. It is aimed at changing sexual behaviors.
- Secondary . In this case, what is intended is that once the pregnancy has taken place, the problems that it brings with it are limited, that is, the satisfactory evolution of both the mother and the baby is pursued.
- Tertiary . Its objective is to achieve the baby's happiness and stability.