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REPRODUCTIVE health issues are sometimes neglected especially among teenagers as adults tend to assume the young are not yet sexually active when they are. It is this dithering, procrastination on the part of the adults, and sometimes downright ignorance even on their part that has led to many teenagers making woeful reproductive health decisions.A� We have read of very young girls falling pregnant and some dying during childbirth. Just last year during exam time we had a case of a teenager that was rushed from a Grade Seven examination only to give birth later, with the mother having been unaware that she was pregnant.
Elsewhere in this edition we carry the story of a teenager that was allegedly forced into performing an abortion by her boyfriend and his family. The teenager, despite science lessons, it seems was unaware of the most effective way to protect herself against pregnancy. Her actions seemed to be steeped in myths about people that have serious period pains. It would appear someone made her believe that if one has serious period pains, that was a sign that they would not fall pregnant, more like, a sign of infertility. It is our hope that it was not her parents that gave her that idea.
Armed with that wrong information the teenager then indulged under the false belief that she would not fall pregnant, totally oblivious of the other risks she was exposing herself to, such as disease.
It is quite important that as parents we educate our children and warn them on the dangers of pre-marital sex. For those still at school our advice is that they should just abstain. We are aware, however, that there are conflicting messages flying around and peer pressure to contend with on the part of the young people. The outside influence should be countered always by providing the correct information. For example, telling the young that their best option is to abstain but that should they fail to do that they could use condoms to protect themselves against pregnancy and disease. Also, it would also be a good thing to enlighten them on how an early sexual debut predisposes them to cancer of the cervix and other complications.
The story of the teenager who found herself in the dock shows us also how the young men are let off lightly. The boyfriend who allegedly pressured her into aborting will maintain his clean record while the young woman now has a criminal record. Lurching from one form of misinformation to yet another dangerous experiment is what teenagers do. We learn that the young woman turned to social media for help on how to end the pregnancy. It is worrying that not only did the young woman have access to a cellular phone, but that she belonged to an adult women WhatsApp group that seemed to share even illegal stuff, hence their prescription to her on how to terminate a pregnancy the traditional way. We believe timely intervention saved her life.
Our view is that we could reduce and in some instances avoid such occurrences by opening lines of communication with our young ones and giving them guidance, especially on matters around relationships and reproductive health. .
Online Reporter