Awareness Of The Dangers Of Teenage Pregnancy And Motherhood Among Teenage Mothers

Medical and Health Science Project and Seminar Material

Abstract

The study examined teenage pregnancy and the awareness of dangers of teenage pregnancy employed by Teenagers in Delta State of Nigeria. The major objective of the study was to determine the child rearing practices employed by teenage mothers and how these affect their educational performance. Four specific objectives were stated which raised four research questions. Four null hypotheses were also formulated. The chosen research design for the study was a survey. A total of 382 teenage mothers, from a population of 2,658 were selected using stratified sampling method. The data collection was collected using a self designed questionnaire called Teenage Pregnancy and Child Rearing Dangers in Delta state. All the four null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance, and all were rejected. The findings showed that Dangers adopted in child rearing have a significant role to play in teenage pregnancy responsibilities. Mothers that adopted the dangers of making use of Nannies spend less time with their children, than the mothers who adopted the strategy of personally taking care of their children. It is recommended that spouses of the teenage mothers should employ the assistance of their family members to help lessen the burden mother by assisting them in taking care of the children while they are busy or when the children are unwell and allowing the younger ones in family to help with household chores whenever possible.

Chapter One

Introduction

1.1 Background of Study

The number of teenagers giving birth each year in Nigeria is increasing. Babies are seen dumped in toilet places, bushes and road sides. These babies who are dumped are in most cases, given birth to by teenagers who are unwed. Some of these teenage mothers cannot identify the fathers of their babies because they have multiple sex partners so they feel the best option is to dump such babies.

Some teenage girls become mothers, because they cannot meet some life goals. Being a teenage mother is not accidental for some girls but intentional. This is because such girls see no better option in life other than being a mother. That is the reason most current sex and pregnancy preventive education efforts are ineffective at preventing teenage motherhood. There is a public concern over the rate at which the number of teenage mothers is increasing. The resolution to become a teenage mother by these young girls has triggered both political debate and academic inquiry.

Teen childbearing is associated with negative outcomes for teen parents, their children, and society. The vast majority of all pregnancies among teenagers are unintended that-is, they were either unwanted or they occurred outside marriage (Ohonsi 2010). Teen birth rate in Katsina is the highest when compared to those of other states including Oyo and Edo. (Ogbu 2013).These teenage mothers face a variety of difficult decisions. For the unmarried ones, they must decide whether to raise the born child or to place the baby for adoption. For the married ones, they must make decision with their husbands about mode of delivery, are they going for normal delivery, cesarean section or go for an abortion?

This particular thought may come due to under development of pelvis. Other critical decision about school, work, house chores, and how to care for the new born among others, need to be made. In Kano, many teenage mothers experience obstructed labour due to poor development of pelvis. This always resulted in serious maternal morbidity, for example, Vessico Virginal Fistula (VVF) or maternal mortality. Age of marriage has traditionally been low in kinship-based societies and economies. In such areas, most girls married soon after menarche; fertility was high and consequently many children were born from teenage mothers. This was not considered to be a problem. The teenage mother receive good family and community supports. Timely quality antenatal care and deliveries were by Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs).

In Abia and Imo States, some teenagers got pregnant for economic reasons, they gave birth and sold such babies. They are instances where some girls sold their babies for a token of ten thousand naira (N10,000)

The preventive programmes based on promoting abstinence in most Nigerian secondary schools, do not reduce teenage sex, pregnancy and motherhood. The school based clinics, sex education and contraceptive service programmes have little impact on teenage sexual activity. Teenage motherhood continues to rise in every state in Nigeria. Many teenage girls see themselves as having nothing to strive for as they cannot see graduating from a tertiary school because they have few role models to follow, their teachers give them little encouragement about their abilities, their families are chaotic and their friends are on drugs. So parenting looks more like the best option for them. Such girls think babies provide immediate source of unconditional love.

Effective prevention of unplanned teen pregnancies that will result in teenage motherhood will save the Nigerian society the cost she pays to support a teen mother her children and grand children. It would also break the cycle related to psychopathologies in our culture, including drug and alcohol abuse, fetal alcohol syndrome, drug induced birth defect, drops out of school, crime, domestic violence and poverty, for all teenagers that become mothers, before they were prepared, the society keeps paying the cost. This could be seen in most city centers when some of such teenagers beg for alms. Others rely on the generosity of members of the church or philanthropic society.

In Abia, Imo Enugu and Anambra state, the problem of teenage pregnancies is further compounding by the involvement of some fathers and advanced adults in the inducements of teenage girls to feed the baby factories with their offspring. Teenage pregnancy is linked with several issues that include low educational levels, higher rate of poverty, and other poorer outcomes in children of teenage mothers. Teenage pregnanc in most developing countries is often outside marriage. This comes with certain social stigma in many communities.

Drugs and alcohol that remove inhibition can easily trigger and encourage unintended sexual activities. It has not been comprehensively established that the drugs themselves directly influence teenagers to indulge in risky behaviours, or whether it is true that the teenagers that engage in drug use, are more likely to indulge in sexual activities. This is premised on the logic that correlation does not imply causation. The drugs that have a strongest evident linkage in teenage pregnancies include alcohol, ecstasy, cannabis and amphetamines.

Advance countries of the world try to see that their young ones are given the best formal education so that they can grow in knowledge, attitude and skills that will bring about increase in productivity and technological advancement, and in general economic growth and development. This process of formal Education, which starts at very tender age of less than one, is consolidated, when these persons are in their teens. Since the brain and other learning faculties have been fully developed. Losing these great human resources to unplanned pregnancies and teenage child bearing is a minus to any economy.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

In recent decades, teenage pregnancy and motherhood has become an important health issue. A great number of country experience this phenomenon, both developed and developing Pregnant teenagers face many of the obstetrics issues as other older women. There are however additional medical concerns for mothers aged under 15.Risks of low birth weight, premature labour, anemia and pre-eclampsia are connected to the biological age. For mothers age 15-19,risk are associated more with socio-economic factors than with biological effects of age. Teenage pregnancy and mother hood is a serious risk factor, and this mostly occurs when these teenage girls are having their first delivery.

Besides it is a well known fact that most teenage girls are not able to cope with some challenges that come with motherhood. Most teenage girls in the area under study are found to have at least a child, as such most of them either stop going to school completely or start schooling after having at least two or more children. Hence the researcher is interested in finding why such teenagers take to motherhood at such tender ages, despite all the known negative consequences associated with teenage pregnancy and motherhood.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The major objective of this study is to determine the awareness of the dangers of teenage pregnancy and motherhood among teenage girls in Ika L.G.A. Delta state.

The specific objectives are to:

Determine the child rearing dangers employed by teenage mothers.
Determine the extent to which parenting cause a setback to teenagers’ education.

1.4 Research Questions

This study intend to answer the following research questions:

What is the level of awareness of the dangers of teenage pregnancy among teenagers in Ika L.G.A. Delta state?
What is the child rearing dangers employed by teenage mothers?
To what extent does parenting cause a set back to teenagers mothers education?

1.5 Hypotheses

In order to achieve the stated objectives, the researcher formulated four null hypotheses as follows:

There is no significant relationship between teenage pregnancy and
dangers adopted in rearing the child.
There is no significant relationship between teenage pregnancy and level of academic performance.
There is no significant relationship between teenage pregnancy and their attainment of education.
There is no significant relationship between child rearing dangers employed by s and their academic pursuit.

1.6 Significance of the Study

The study will be beneficial to mothers, teenage girls, fathers and all custodians of teenagers, health educators policy planners, social institutions and the teeming population in Ika south local government area of Delta state. It will serve as a tool for counseling teenagers on the dangers of teenage pregnancies and motherhood.

1.7 Scope / Delimitation of the Study

The scope of the study is Ika south local government area which comprises Agbor, Abavo, Idumuesa

The study will be delimited to teenage mothers in Ika south local government area of Delta state.

1.8 Limitation of the Study

The study will be limited by some teenage mothers who may be too shy to respond to the questions from the researcher and the inadequate cooperation from some teenage mothers who might hoard information from the researcher. In order to overcome this challenge, the researcher intends to encourage these teenage mothers

Chapter Five

Summary, Conclusion and Recommendation

5.1 Summary

The study was conducted to find out the child rearing dangers employed by teenage mothers in the secondary schools in Delta state. Four specific objectives were clearly stated after stating the major objective of study, these objectives raised four research questions to be answered. Four null hypotheses were also formulated for the study.

Chapter two highlighted, both on conceptual under the sub-topics concept of parenting, concept of child rearing practices and secondly school students, as well as empirical studies, after which a brief summary was given based on chapter one and chapter two.

Chapter three the survey design was used for the study, 382 teenage mothers from six Divisions in the study areas were selected, using the random and purposive sampling technique from 2, 658 teenage mothers as the target population. A self designed and self administered questionnaire was used for the achievement of the research questions and hypotheses. The data was analysed using percentages, frequencies as well as the chi-square statistical tools. The findings are:

The study found that most teenage mothers performed their parenting responsibilities by taking care of their children, washing and feeding them, as well as, taking the child to the hospital when the child is sick.
It was also found that most teenage mothers employed the help of nannies and sister-inlaws to care for their children.
Coupled with taking care of their children, the teenage mothers do all their household chores by themselves as such they rarely have time to play with their children only when the child cries.
Those teenage mothers that cannot afford employing nannies in their homes, take their children to women at neighbourhood that offer their services of taking care of children, while their mothers are away and most cases when they returned, they found their children untidy and unkept.
Most of these teenage mothers attended schools far away from their homes which resulted in their being late to school in most cases.
Majority of these teenage mothers only have time for studying only before examinations, because they did their household chores all alone.
Majority have difficulty with homework and assignments when at home, and they only ask their friends and neighbours for assistance, as such this makes them to feel unsatisfactorily about their performance at school.
Most of these teenage mothers’ children play with their books or tear it for them, and thus can result in their missing some vital parts of their notes.

5.2 Conclusion

Majority of the teenage mothers performed their parenting roles of providing the physical need of their children. In addition, they performed all their household chores alone. Also, the teenage mothers employed various dangers like the employment of nannies, asking sister-inlaws to care for their children while they were away at school. Majority of these teenage mothers only have time for studying before the examinations, they often were late to school and mostly had difficulties with their home works and assignments.

5.3 Limitation of the Study

Most of these teenagers are too young and shy (especially those in mixed schools) to admit that they are married and even with children.

Most felt that it is a personal issue and were not comfortable discussing their affairs and some even felt its no ones business how they handle their children. Again, most were afraid especially those in junior secondary school thinking that, they might have broken some school rules and regulations or they were not expected to be married at that age and so liable to be punished or dismissed. Schools like Government junior secondary school Matari, Government junior secondary school Kugu (Zaria Division). Government junior secondary school Gurzamariri, Government junior secondary school Garunkurama (Lere Division). Government junior secondary school Kaibi, Government junior secondary school Kwarekadege (Anchau Division), were located deep into remote areas, so there was problem of transportation, locating and language barrier.

However, these limitations was resolved by the method of sampling used and also the used of trained assistants.

5.4 Recommendations

Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations are made:

All schools should create a guidance and counseling unit or if there is one should include certain issues for the teenagers on how to adjust to school performance as well as adjusting to their household chores.
The school management may also put forward request or suggestion to be included in the curriculum that can benefit such students as well as providing the schools with textbooks that can benefit the teenage mothers.
The spouses of the teenage mothers should employ the assistance of their family members, to help lessen the burden on teenage mothers, by assisting them in taking care of the children while they are busy or while the children are unwell and allowing the younger ones in the family to help with household chores whenever possible.
Teenagers should form the habit of spending some few hours for studies or make a time table, so that they can study while at home.
The school authority can organize workshops and counseling sessions from time to time, so that they can counsel students on how to develop good study habits.
Curriculum planners should include the knowledge of sex education and family planning right from primary six, so that those that were married early in life, can learn to plan and wait until they have spent some years in marriage, by then they might have adapted properly to their academic responsibilities.

5.5 Suggestions for Further Study.

In the light of the findings, it is recommended that there should be further study to investigate the academic performance of teenage parents and their child rearing dangers.

This present study is a survey kind of study, an experimental research could be done to find out effects of the dangers used by this teenagers on the moral up bringing of their children.

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