How Statistics Can Help Understand Teenage Pregnancy Better

Collecting data on various activities and compiling them to form statistics is really a tough job and when it comes to looking at statistics on teenage pregnancy, then you may find them conflicting and confusing. Teenage pregnancy statistics is one area where you may find understanding them difficult, as the volume of data is so high that has made it difficult to classify the data based on demography.

Your understanding on teenage pregnancy can be competitive only when you look into the data that has been collected from various demographic areas such as federal, local and state level and you should also take into account various other factors such as the age of the mother, their financial standings and educational levels, because without which the understanding reached can never be total and authentic.

It has been widely believed that there is a spurt in incidence of teenage pregnancy, but according to many studies, the real situation is that teenage pregnancy is declining much to the relief of the government and to the parents as well. However, this finding could not be construed as a decline in the sexual activity among teenagers, but contrary to the belief, other findings establish a significant increase in the sexual activity among teenagers right from the year 1960. Then what contributed to the actual decline in teenage pregnancy despite an increase in their sexual activity?

What Triggered a reduction in Teenage Pregnancy

When it comes to the various factors that favored or set in motion a decline in teenage pregnancy, the main factor can be attributed to the large-scale introduction and availability of many forms of contraceptives that was freely made use by teenagers. Though not on a higher side, there is also a possibility of the legalized abortion altering the real statistics figures, as the same was considered to be a preventive pregnancy procedure rather than a termination procedure.

Though the availability of contraceptives and other preventive devices could have triggered a decline in teenage pregnancy, the extent of favourable results could not have been achieved without a proper awareness and education amongst teenagers on the lines of preventing unwanted pregnancies and safe sex. The abstinence education programs have also brought in a welcome change amongst faithful teenagers and this has also contributed to certain extent for reduction in teenage pregnancies.

Today, though teenage pregnancy still continues to be a major concern in many parts of the world, there are chances that it will continue to haunt parents and the lawmakers in future too unless there is an education and abstinence programme in place permanently.

Tags: pregnancy testing