Teen Parents, Curriculum for Pregnant Teens, Essay Example

One of the health initiatives that is being conducted my area is warning individuals about the lifestyle changes that having a child as a teenager will cause and providing them with appropriate prevention education. A major problem that adolescents experience is that they are not properly educated about safe sex or they do not have the ability to acquire protection (Edwards, 2009). As a consequence, they often engage in sexual intercourse without using protection methods, assuming that the pull-out method is adequate to prevent against pregnancy (Stanger-Hall et al., 2011). However, these education programs aim to make these students understand that there is a high risk of becoming pregnant and acquiring STDs as a consequence of a failure to use condoms.

While there is a large population of individuals that this health initiative intends to assist, many non-for-profit organizations have posted advertisements in public areas providing information about statistics related to teenage pregnancies and indicating where interested individuals could gain more information on prevention and/or seeking resources if they do become pregnant. Furthermore, many of these organizations attempt to provide pregnant adolescents with information that is necessary to ensure that their baby will be born healthy, in addition to ensuring that it will be provided for following its birth.

It appears that this program is currently effective, as more adolescents have been using publicly and privately funded resources to help them support their reproductive health. This is beneficial because many families consider reproductive health to be a taboo subject, but this doesn’t lessen the need for resource availability. These programs are currently seeking greater funding, which would help them reach a greater number of adolescents in need in the near future.

References

Edwards LA. (2009). Teen Parents, Curriculum for Pregnant Teens. Journal of Nutrition, Education and Behavior, 41(1): 74.

Stanger-Hall KF, Hall DW. (2011). Abstinence-Only Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates: Why We Need Comprehensive Sex Education in the U.S. PLOS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0024658