BAGUIO CITY – The Health Services Office’s (HSO) population division has reported a significant increase in teenage pregnancies in the Summer Capital from 545 cases in 2017 to 623 last year.
Population development officer Rowena Rabanes said the data was collated from numbers given by the city’s 16 health centers under the HSO’s field health services information system.
She explained that teenage pregnancy also known as adolescent pregnancy occurs when the person who gets pregnant is below 20 years of age.
“Pregnant teenagers face many risks like low birth weight of the child, premature labor, anemia and pre-eclampsia, all connected to their biological age,” Rabanes warned.
She revealed that possible factors leading to teenage pregnancy include risky behavior, wrong parental guidance or absentee parents, increased exposure to social media and limited access to proper information and services.
Rabanes said that early pregnancy can lead the teenage mother to dropout from school, have an abortion, get sexually transmitted disease, have poor nutrition, have greater chances of infant or maternal mortality, and suffer from depression.
She said the HSO’s population division has several free programs including an Adolescent & Youth Health and Development Program (AYHDP) that aims to prevent adolescents from having early and repeated pregnancies.
Rabanes added that several strategies are already in place to ensure that they are reached through information and education activities that will help eliminate early sexual encounters like the conduct of peer education, adolescent reproductive health seminars, teen trail training, film viewing on adolescent issues, young mom’s activity, and more.
“It has been recognized that adolescence is a critical period in human development in the transitional stage of life between childhood and adulthood where many change occur. It is characterized by rapid growth and development in the biological, social and emotional dimensions of the adolescent,” she stressed.
For more information, one can visit the Health Services Office’s population development office at T. Alonzo, call tel. nos. 442-4542 and 442-9829 or email at baguiocitypopulationservices@gmail.com.**gaby keith
