Iesha Allen

Teen Pregnancy in Canada

Iesha Allen

Teen Pregnancy in Canada

Teenagers have decided to lead the ways of our elders and make
new history with their promiscuity. Adolescents are now looked down upon
because of these actions, now more then ever teenagers are becoming
parents. Being married is no longer a necessity for two people to engage in
sexual intimacy anymore. One night stands have become more socially
acceptable. Since fornication is now socially accepted amongst teenagers, it
aids to teenagers having children at such a young age and it being viewed as
the normality of adolescents behaviour. As a teenager, this world wide social
issue would be essential to discuss due to the fact of this being my
generation. It affects me in every way because I fall into the bracket of the
modern day adolescent.
Teen pregnancy is a social issue for a number of reasons: teenagers are
having sex more freely by not using contraceptives, leading them with the
consequential results of becoming pregnant and not being able to afford and
provide for another being. This also leads to teenagers staying home for a
higher amount of time with their parents and dropping out of school. Its
harder for a teenager with a toddler to pursue a career they want opposed to
a teenager who doesnt have a child and can focus on their academic
studies. In addition, troubled children become the product of a broken home
because of all the unplanned pregnancy and parents not being together.

Iesha Allen

Youthful girls arent thoroughly developed internally and externally, so when

it comes to carrying a child, it can lead to some harmful effects towards the
child it self the baby can be born with birth defects because the parents
eggs werent properly grown at the time of fertilization. The chances of a
child being born with a birth defect are significantly greater with teenage
mothers as opposed to a woman who is older and healthy with properly
grown eggs. Its also very dangerous for these teenagers to become
pregnant because of their under developed bodies. Teenagers usually do not
gain much weight during their pregnancy and in turn causes low birth weight
which is dangerous on the babies and can lead to many types of disorders
and conditions. This is a very dangerous and serious situation because it can
cause infant mortality. When pregnant, women are supposed to eat healthy
so that they can take care of their body and the babies body. Teenagers who
get pregnant are less likely to do that, they are more likely to eat fast foods
and not take multi vitamins to keep the baby healthy. Teenagers are still
young and want to have fun so they are more likely to take drugs and drink
alcohol, smoke cigarettes when pregnant even though they know the
dangers it could cause on the baby and or on themselves.

Because these children are born in an unsuitable environment they are

exposed to higher health risks at birth and later on in life. Because of the
broken homes some of them are born into, they also can experience social
and mental issues. They sometimes can be neglected of stimulation and in

Iesha Allen

return they dont do as well in school and would start to look for attention in
the wrong direction and become a troubled child. When they are conceived
by teenage mothers they can be neglected or abused physically and
sexually. According to Health Communities boys born to teenagers are 13%
more likely to be incarcerated, girls are 22 % more likely to follow into the
same stigma their mothers did and become teen mothers themselves.
78% of teenage pregnancies are unplanned and unwanted, out of those 35
% decide to have an abortion rather than to tell their families and have the
child. In 2011, 730,322 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC from
49 reporting areas. The abortion rate was 13.9 abortions per 1,000 women
aged 1544 years and the abortion ratio was 219 abortions per 1,000 live
births. (cdc.gov). Majority of teenagers experience unwanted pregnancies
leading to them typically aborted their child. These girls felt that a child
wasnt for them at that moment in time. This can be very dangerous on
themselves and on the baby due to the fact that it is an unnatural procedure;
it is a forced termination of pregnancy. If not done properly they can get
alters in the womb or pieces of the abortion can still be left inside the uterus
causing pain and health concerns on the girl. In rare cases they could not be
able to have children ever again. This is dangerous for the babies because it
is a dangerous process and some people say the baby can feel as its being
teared apart. There have been reported cases of terminations gone wrong
and the baby was born but was born with severe birth defects.

Iesha Allen

Looking at teen pregnancy from a conflict theory perspective, teen

pregnancy causes a major conflict on the lives of the newly parents. Their
lives are forever changed because of the child they are soon going to endure.
From a conflict theorist perspective pregnant teenage girls are looked down
upon and looked at as a disappointment . People think their lives are over
because they became pregnant at such an early age. Conflict theorists would
look at the stress teenagers go through when dealing with a pregnancy. The
inequality of how a teenage father may not be looked down on as much as a
teenage mother would because of gender inequality. Society has become
more welcoming of teenage pregnancy then they were 10 years ago. Teen
pregnancy impacts social change because since so many teenagers are
getting pregnant we as a society have made it morally okay to have a child
at a young age. Because there are more single mothers now then there were
10-15 years ago, those women now support teen pregnancy and have made
support groups such as helplines and About Kids Help to support these teens
and give them the assistance that they need. These support systems are in
place to assure teenagers are not alone in the situation and even if their
family was to leave and disown them that they could still get through this if
they needed support on whatever decision they make. These support groups,
give them the hope that they need in order for them make the best decision,
for themselves and their unborn child. These resources are also available to
the fathers to be in case they need help as well but usually teenage girls
are the ones who use the resources because the boys are able to hide this

Iesha Allen

situation a lot better then a girl would be and doesnt really have to tell
anyone if they did not want anyone to know about this.

Although this social issue will probably still continue to happen there are a lot
of solutions we can do to dramatically decrease teen pregnancy. One of
these solutions would be for parents to talk to their children about sex and
being protected and responsible. Studies show that many teenagers who got
pregnant did NOT have the sex talk with their parents. If parents would speak
to their children about how to have safe sex, then a lot of girls would not get
pregnant because more guys would know about how important wearing
condoms are and girls would know how important making sure their partner
is wearing a condom. Teenagers always seem to think they are invincible to a
lot and parents need to do their part to make sure they know that they are
not invincible to teen pregnancy. Also if parents were more open to
answering their childrens questions when they want to know about sex.
These days parents dont feel comfortable talking to their children about sex
because they feel if they talk to their child about it they are opening the door
to curiosity and that their children will want to have sex but actually if
parents spoke to their kids about it then kids would understand the depths of
it and how easy it is to actually get pregnant. Because their parents are
answering the questions they have towards sex they are less interested in
exploring more into sex.

Iesha Allen

Another solution for teen pregnancy would be to stop glamourizing sex and
to show the consequences and negative sides to having unprotected sex. As
a society everything has become a sex symbol, it seems no longer do we say
sex before marriage is wrong but now as long as you love the person sex is
okay. If we were to show the consequences such as chlamydia, ghonnerea,
herpes, and other stds or stis aids and HIV then teenagers would think more
before they had unprotected sex and the rates for teen pregnancy would be
brought down to a minimal .

Iesha Allen

Iesha Allen

In conclusion teen pregnancy is a social issue that can be 100 percent fixed if
we as a society worked together to fix it. Teenagers more open to having sex
with random people. They no longer need to be in love to have sex they have
taken power of their sexuality. Not only are the teenagers affected by this
their children can be affected in more the one-way health, mental, and
socially they can be affected by their parents having them at such a young
age.

Iesha Allen

References
1. Teen Pregnancy. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2015, from
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/sites/default/files/5299-eng.pdf

2. Teen Pregnancy & Health Risks to the Baby. (2000, October 31).
3. Data and Statistics. (2015, September 14). Retrieved November 22, 2015, from
http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/
4.http://www.chacha.com/question/how-do-conflict-theoristsexplain-teen-pregnancy