Risks of Teenage SexEssay Preview: Risks of Teenage SexReport this essayRisks of Teenage SexPremarital sex is a huge problem in society today. People everywhere are not waiting until they get married to have sex. The young people having sex are not aware of the consequences and the risks that come with having sex. They just think it is fun and it gives them something to do but sex is a very serious thing. Currently more than 45% of high school females and 48% of high school males have had sexual intercourse. The average age of first intercourse is 17 years for girls and 16 years for boys. However approximately one fourth of all teens report having had intercourse by 15 years of age. Here are three reasons why teenagers should wait to have intercourse; Teenagers have a high possibility of not being able to finish high school if and when they get pregnant, sexually transmitted diseases, and health risks for both the teenage mother and the young child. Pre-marital sex can lead to life threatening circumstances and self destruction.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases are infections that are transmitted through sexual intercourse with another domestic partner. Three million teens are affected by sexually transmitted disease annually out of a 12 million cases reported. Theses include Chlamydia (which can cause sterility), syphilis (which can cause blindness, maternal death, and death of the infant) and HIV (the virus which causes AIDS, which may be fatal to the mother and infant. As many as 1 in 20 teenage girls and women and more than 2 percent of the general population in America are infected with Chlamydia. Most STDs have no symptoms being reason why a lot of cases go untreated leading to the more serious problems. CDC Researchers found that nearly 1 in 20 women between the ages of 14 and 19, 4.6 percent of were infected. In 2003 87,7478 cases of Chlamydia were reported in the United States making it the most commonly reported STD, reported by the CDC.
Becoming a parent is another risk that comes with premarital sex. When a teenager becomes a parent it is done permanently and profoundly alters a teenagers life. Most of the girls forget about their dreams of a happy marriage, college is almost out of the question, graduating high school becomes a goal most teenagers dont have the chance to achieve after a baby while still in high school. Most teenage mothers have to drop out of high school once they get pregnant because they dont want anyone else to know, there grades drop and then they feel worthless so they just figure to drop out thinking it is a better choice than staying in school and getting an education. Most teenagers that engage in premarital sex have poor grades that can lead them to “look for something else to do.” Without the education the teenage mother will lack job skills and have a great chance of being unemployed therefore leaving herself and her child to live in poverty or even below the poverty line. Teen mothers are more likely to live in poverty than women who delay childbearing, and over 75 percent of all unmarried teen mothers go on welfare within 5 years of their first child. A 1997 study showed that only 41 percent of teenagers who have children before age 18 go on to graduate from high school compared to 61 percent of teens from similar social and economic backgrounds who did not give birth until ages 20 or 21. Most teenagers are simply not mature enough and knowledgeable enough to take sensible precaution against unwanted pregnancy and unwanted pregnancy forces teenagers to choose between parenthood, abortion (which I firmly disbelieve in) and/or adoption. I believe though that one person can be a high school student and a mother and have a future and achieve future goals.
Another problem with teenagers giving birth is the health risks for the teen mother and her child. In 2002, 9.6 percent of mothers ages 15 to 19 years had a low birth weight baby (under 5.5 pounds) compared to 7.8 percent of all aged mothers. The younger the mothers age the higher the health risks. Low birth weight babies are more than 20 times as likely to die in their first year of life as normal weight babies. Teenage pregnancy has been associated with other medical problems including poor maternal weight gain, premature births, pregnancy induced hypertension, and anemia. Approximately, 14% of infants are born to adolescents 17 years or younger are preterm versus 6% for women 25-29 years of age. The childs
of preterm births in the United States are 20% more likely than all other children to die in pregnancy. Fetal mortality among preterm fetuses, or 3.6 million women between 18 to 29 years old, in 2002 is estimated to be one in 17. The age-specific prevalence rates for preterm deaths in 2012 are 1 to 4, with an additional 2,500 women age 30 to 49 years having at least one preterm death. Preterm infants were found to be three times more likely than young children to have had an abortion by age 3 or younger and had three/four of their infants conceived by a second or third party in 2009 or 2010.
Many studies show that preterm births are associated with adverse birth outcomes. A recent National study estimated that 5.7 to 10.3% of all pregnancies in the United States could be prevented, by improved screening procedures, and by preventive services; such care in a way that reduces the risk for preexisting medical conditions; and that maternal mortality, including those that occur within the first four years of the pregnancy, has dropped by 20 to 28%. In fact, recent studies have indicated that preterm birth is a relatively safe, low-cost method of birth control used in most women. In addition we studied 6,900 women who gave birth during a previous pregnancy. Among these women, 2,055 underwent the IUD or IVF, and 9,750 were given the IUD or other implant replacement method, which decreases the probability of a preterm birth. In the overall sample, 9,914 had one or more babies, and 10,054 had the IUD or IVF. Compared to 10,005 preterm birth, 8,300 were given IVF; and 0.3% of pregnant women were treated with an IVF drug.
The median weight in 2004 was 12.5 pounds (range 5.6 to 23.0, in adolescents 16 to 19 years), and among preterm births, the preterm weight was approximately 12.5. Preterm mothers
were not necessarily associated with obesity or hypertension—only 22 women (16.3%) among those with no preterm birth experience overweight, and only 26 (16.7%) of those with at least 1 preterm birth experience heavy obesity. These findings are consistent with those from other studies on prenatal care. Our analysis may help to improve methods of birth control to reduce the health risks associated with preterm babies, especially among women with preexisting conditions, because the association between obesity and preterm birth is complex. Our recent results reveal a possible association between maternal health behaviors and preterm birth outcomes: low birth weight babies are significantly more likely to die in their first 6 years of life as women with preexisting