Teenage Pregnancy

ST. ANDREW’S SCHOOL
La Huerta, Lungsod ng Paranaque

Research Paper in English IV

“Study in Early Teen Age Pregancy”

Submitted By:
1 ALLANIGUE, Ma. Isabel
9 CATUBLAS, Kamille
38 VILLAFLOR, Khauleen
35 STA. ANA, Pamela
18 FELICIANO, Alyssa

IV- St. Rita De Cascia Submitted to:
MARIBEL VERENDIA
Teacher, English IV

School Year 2011-2012
A B S T R A C T
OBJECTIVE
To assess the factors associated with adolescent pregnancies among secondary students at Tanga municipality.
METHODOLOGY
A cross sectional descriptive analytical study which targeted all girls in secondary schools at Tanga municipality,
RESULTS
Low socioeconomic status was found to be an important cause for adolescent pregnancies as 57.1% of respondents suggested. Other factors responsible were luxury and deprivation of education to girls (43.5% and
16.5% respectively). Source of reproductive health education was contrary to most previous studies as 82.6% reported to get it from parents and health centres, while schools and peer groups contributed only 29.1% and
7.2% respectively.
CONCLUSION
Parents and guardians are important source of reproductive health education to adolescents and useful for prevention of early pregnancies. Early marriages are not as much important as source of adolescent pregnancies. RECOMMENDATIONS
I encourage parents/guardians, to educate their children on reproductive issues, and to increase access to education for girls, which is of paramount importance in preventing adolescent pregnancies.

LOCAL STUDIES

LA HUERTA

Barangay La Huerta has a total land area of 121.72 hectares to include Freedom Island, which is composed of 21 streets and divided into 4 puroks (areas). The barangay is mostly composed of residential and commercial establishments. The three main roads mentioned above are elevated from the community.
Its main sources of livelihood are primarily general commerce, followed by fishing, vending, and salt-making
Location
Barangay La Huerta is located at the southern street of Quirino Avenue of the City of Paranaque. It is bounded on the north by Bgy. Don Galo and the Paranaque River, on the east by Bgy. Sto. Niño, Bgy. San Dionision on the south, and the waters of Manila Bay on the west.
There are three main roads that traverse the barangay, namely E. Aguinaldo Hi-way (formerly the Manila-Cavite coastal road), Quirino Avenue and the Ninoy Aquino Avenue.
Historical background
La Huerta is a Spanish word which means "orchard", a place thick with fruits, flowers and trees. A long time ago, the barrio was like a garden where people picked flowers, fruits and trees that offered a breath-taking sight. It had a very beautiful garden where young ladies and men strolled together. Even the friars, Spaniards and señoritas enjoyed spending time in the garden. People from as far as the southern province of Batangas could not refrain from stopping and admiring the place.
However, since there was no one to maintain the famous garden, the orchard slowly deteriorated. Hence, at present, not even a trace of those trees and plants can be found.

Conceptual Frame Work
PSYCHOLOGICAL
Teenagers
ETHICS
SOCIAL

Teenage Pregnancy

CHAPTER II
Related Literature
Theories of Moral Responsibility * To say a person is responsible in this sense is to say that the person is deserving of blame. * This sense of "responsible" seems to imply fault. * That is, when we say people are responsible in this sense we are evaluating their behavior relative to some principle or standard. * Those responsible in this evaluative sense may also be responsible in one of the other senses of the term * an assessment of responsibility in one of the first three senses is often the basis for attributing responsibility in this fourth sense

Moral Responsibility: Accountability for the actions one performs and the consequences they bring about, for which a moral agent could be justly punished or rewarded. It is commonly held to require the agent's freedom to have done otherwise (autonomy).
Moral responsibility is a normative notion—it involves an evaluation
Connected to other concepts such as duty, obligation, knowledge, freedom, choice, accountability, agency, praise, blame, intention, pride, guilt, shame, conscience, and character

Types of Moral Responsibility Attribution

* Depending on the kind of responsibility, there are different mechanisms for attributing responsibility * Responsibility can be attributed: * Ex Ante (Before something happens) as in “I take full responsibility that nothing will go wrong” * Ex Post (After something happens) as in “I take full responsibility for everything that went wrong”

* Assignment of responsibility is not an all or nothing affair – individuals can be assigned various degrees of responsibility based on a variety of influencing factors

Theories of Maturity

Indeed, peers are one of the most factors that influence the adolescent’s psychological development. Bronfenbrenner (as cited in Oswald and Suss, 1988), a Russian psychologist who had developed many theories in the developmental psychology, asserts, “the first level of the ecology or the context of human development is the microsystem.[ that is] family, school, peer groups as well as the specific culture within which the family identifies.”(349) This means that adolescents are mostly influenced by their families and their surroundings. In previous findings, family was the only responsible for adolescents’ behavior, yet recent research find out that peers have a more powerful influence onadolescents, especially in what concerns academic achievement (Oswald and Suss, 1988).
Even if in Bronfenbrenner’s model, family comes before outer world which is school and peers, researches prove that the role of peers is more significant than parents’ role. This role is important because at teen’s age, youths become interested in knowing who they are. They try hard to find out their identity as this stage is known as the “identity versus identity confusion” in Erik Erickson’s Theory of Identity Development. This goes and says that peer pressure is important and even unavoidable in adolescence. Peers are crucial for adolescent’s development because development needs to be in context which mainly means family and peers (Oswald and Suss, 1988). In fact, peer pressure has more negative than positive effects which influence adolescents’ personality.

Drug abuse is an illustration of the dangerous negative effects that peer pressure has on adolescents. According to Lamsaouri (1994-1995) the cause of substance over use among peers is that everyone else is using it and there is no problem to use it. This is the answer of all adolescents that are caught overusing drugs. Another reason for which adolescents abuse drugs is the pressure peers have on each other. All peers in the same group are obliged to do the same thing and conform to the rules of the group. Therefore, adolescents start using drugs even if they are convinced that they are harmful for their health. Besides, over using drugs, for peers, means that adolescents are strong and they can break down general rules that they learnt from their parents or their teachers. In general, adolescents, use drugs to full fill their need of belonging since it’s a source of self esteem for teens. In fact, Haynie (2002) find out that adolescents get their self esteem from the group they are belonging to and they cannot imagine themselves outside that gathering. Without a group, youths have a low self esteem and they are powerless. They see friends or peers as a vital component in their life without which they cannot live.There are many problems with substance overuse among adolescents, but the biggest one is addiction. Members of the same group overuse drugs and new members have to the same. However, when it comes to addiction, no one is responsible for anybody else. When a peer becomes addicted to smoking, drinking, or illicit substances, it is his/her own responsibility to solve the problem and never tell that he or she was influenced by someone else (Cang and Hawk, 1996). If he or she tells someone else that there is a peer that he/she is hanging out with, the trouble starts with the peer which leads, in most cases, to violence and even death. Indeed, Howell and Decker (1999) declares, “because the growth in youth gang. violence coincided with the crack cocaine epidemic, the two developments were generally perceived to be interrelated.

CHAPTER III
Methodology

This was a cross-sectional descriptive analytical study, schools were listed to get three schools by random selection from which a sample of 200 was obtained by random choice of the classes.
Official Publication of the Tanzania Medical Students’ Association
31Data was collected using Swahili translated questionnaires. Data was analyzed using Epi Info programme. ET H I C A L C L E A R A N C E
Permission to conduct the study was obtained from the department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology -MUHAS
Identification letter from the Institute of Public Health to the Medical Officer of Tanga municipality
Every interviewed student was assured of confidentiality of the information given and that the information will be used for scientific purposes only.
R E S U LT S
Table 1: Factors associated with adolescent pregnancies
Factor for pregnancy Yes No
Low socioeconomic status 128(57.1%) 96(42.9%)
Luxury 97(43.5%) 126(56.5%)
Deprivation of education 37(16.5%) 187(83.5%)
Low socioeconomic status was the most contributing factor for adolescent pregnancies (57.1%).
Table 2: Awareness on contraceptive methods
Method Yes No
Contraceptive pills 136(60.7%) 88(39.3%)
Injections(Depo-Provera) 91(40.6%) 133(54.9%)
Male condoms 112(50%) 112(50%)
Female condoms 93(41.5%) 131(58.5%)
Tubal ligation 58(25.9%) 166(74.1%) iUCD 74(33%) 150(67%)
Most students (60.7%) were aware of contraceptive pills as the method of preventing unwanted pregnancies.
Table 3: Awareness of contraceptive methods with age
Age(Total) Contraceptive Pills Injection
(Depo-Provera)
Male condoms Female condom Tubal ligation IUCD
13-15(85) 46(54.1%) 21(24.7%) 26(30.6%) 24(28.2%) 12(14.1%) 17(20%)
16-18(119) 79(66.4%) 60(50.4%) 72(60.5%) 58(48.7%) 41(34.5%) 50(42%)
19+(20) 11(55%) 10(50%) 14(70%) 11(55%) 5(25%) 7(35%)
Knowledge of male and female condoms contraceptives was seen to increase with age.
Table 7: Source of reproductive health education
Source of information Yes No Total
School 65(21.1%) 158(70.9%) 223(100%)
Parents and health centers 185(82.6%) 39(17.4%) 224(100%)
Peer groups 16(7.2%) 207(92.8%) 223(100%)
Parents/Guardians and health centers are the main source of reproductive health education (82.6%)

CHAPTER IV
Conclusion & Recommendation

CONCLUSION Nowadays, there are cases about teenage pregnancy. We ask some teenagers who had an early pregnancy. We gathered all our data’s and it came up with different conclusions about teenage pregnancy. It has a hard effect on our society especially on teenagers. In today’s society, teens are faced with different situations like pressure. The effect of this pressure is the inability to make right decisions when it comes to certain situations. Teens find themselves in becoming a parent at a young age, a result to have sex from peers. The numbers of teen pregnancy have indeed decreased, but in the United States, teen pregnancies are at an all time high. Some of the teen pregnancies are unplanned. Teenage pregnancy is not a simple task to overcome. There are many obstacles created by a teenage pregnancy.
RECOMMENDATION
We should increase public commitment to prevent teen pregnancy. We should also increase an effective health programs and strategies to reduce teen pregnancy, so that, we should also prevent adolescent pregnancy, abortion and lessen the serious causes and consequences about early pregnancy and childbearing. Poverty and lack of hope for a productive future are the causes of adolescent pregnancy, supporting families in need can also be a significant part of the effort to reduce teenage pregnancy. They should support some effective programs about an early pregnancy or teenage pregnancy.