Introduction
Teenage or teen pregnancy has become one the most negative trends in Malaysia, it revolves around the younger generation of this country. Teen pregnancy is basically females between the age of 13 to 19 years old that get pregnant by having a sexual intercourse and began to ovulate. It has turned into a very serious problem in Malaysia right now because multiple cases has been reported which related to teen pregnancy. According to the Health Ministry of Malaysia, 18 000 teenage pregnancies recorded in 2014. In Malaysia, we have a school dedicated for pregnant teens but is it strong enough to educate and raise awareness to our younger generation? In fact, Sarawak has topped the chart of the highest teenage pregnancy cases reported in 2015 by having 46.1% cases.
Why is it a problem?
As teenagers face a very serious and intense phase of their life, being pregnant at a very young age, they could experience depression and it might lead to even worse scenario such as abortion and baby dumping. Not to forget, the future of the baby will be at stake as the society will be having problems on accepting the baby as a part of the community. Teenagers are unaware of the challenges they will faced in the future once they got pregnant. Hence, as one community, we need to stop this wild increase in teen pregnancy cases in Malaysia.
Causes and Effects
There are plenty causes of teenage pregnancy. One of the causes is lack of responsibility from parents. Parents are a significant role in a family to guide their children what is right and wrong to do in their life. Teenage usually needs a guide from someone especially from their parents. Moreover, parents too busy with the works till have no time to spend with their children. They feel lack of love and start seeking attention from someone else that would give them what they want. Usually, children feel shy to ask about sex or any close relationship to their parents because they feel uncomfortable to share with them. In addition, media is a huge role in society life especially to teenagers. Nowadays, teenage more likely easy to try any action from what they watch, hear and read. The case is they can access to any pornography websites easily and watching them. This is a big issue in any country including Malaysia even though the government has blocked the porn website. At the young age, teenage more likely love to try something new and get influence easily from media.
There are various effects of teenage pregnancy in term of physically and mentally. One of the effects of teen pregnancy is mother and her baby would lead to risk in term of health. A teenage not fully developed in term of mentally and their body are not ready for to give birth at this age. Many complications would be facing during child birth. It also will affect the baby conditions which lead to prematurity baby. The babies will bear before 40 weeks like a normal baby. The worst thing is the baby usually would die at the first year of his or her life because teenage mom usually not receives regular prenatal care at from hospital or clinic. They more likely lack of information about how to ensure a healthy pregnancy. It might be affects their baby in terms of developing physical during pregnancy and due to prematurity baby. Besides that, teenage mother would due to depression and anxiety in their life. Teenage mother usually will drop out from the school and did not have any good education. Nowadays, people would not get any proper job without any education and they can afford stuff for the baby.
Solutions
A) Representative from UNICEF Malaysia
Due to the fact that sex is now promoted by all the mass media, this topic is not prohibited anymore and talk about sex in the teen age is very important for understanding how important it is to comply with Safety measures during sex. It was about this topic, I as a representative of UNICEF will conduct training for school-age teenagers and older.
As you already know the age for conversation about sex is the age of 16 and above. Therefore, we will promote our training program in schools for students of 10th grade and above. And for teenagers in universities of first and second levels as well. In our training program, we'll talk about sexual education. Where we will talk about the basic knowledge about sex, how women's and men's organism is arranged. Next we will talk about the teenage pregnancy. The consequences and challenges what might wait during teen pregnancy. And finally, we will talk about Security measures, how to protect themselves from pregnancy. And what protection methods do exist in nowadays.
How can it help the community?
With this solution, it can help the community in many ways because on the passage of the entire training program, students will be aware of the consequences of teenage pregnancy, and in case of pregnancy will know their rights and responsibilities. From where and from whom you can get help. This will help them to be safe and be careful. According to our experts the probability to get pregnant is reduced because in most cases this is due to lack of knowledge of protection
