BAGUIO CITY– This city has recorded a downtrend in the number of young mothers in the last three years, city health officer Dr. Rowena Galpo said Tuesday.
Galpo said that in 2015, they have recorded 610 young mothers, aged 15 to 19, who gave birth in the city. In 2016, the figure went down to 578 and in 2017, there were 327. The numbers represented that of actual residents of Baguio.
Based on the 2017 national teen pregnancy statistics, the Cordillera region ranked second with the least number of teen pregnancies. This was an improvement from the 2013 survey, when Cordillera topped the list of regions with the most number of teenage mothers. Baguio city accounted for most of the incidence.
Galpo said following the 2013 survey and to address the problem, the city mayor issued an administrative order creating the adolescent and youth development council composed of various government and non-government agencies.
The council, she said, trains health staff to handle adolescent fertility cases and also upgrades barangay health centers into adolescent-friendly facilities to make them a “tambayan” of teenagers. There are also adolescent reproductive health programs now institutionalized, which include distribution of contraceptives to teenagers, especially those engaged in sexual activities.
She however reiterated that while contraceptives are available, they are promoting abstinence as the best method of preventing teenage pregnancy.
Marlene de Castro, Executive Director of the over 30-year old Baguio Center for Young Adults (BCYA) that focuses its programs on improving the life skills of young people, said the continuing consolidated effort of various sectors could have contributed to the decreasing trend in teen pregnancies in Baguio.
She mentioned information and education campaign in different schools that focuses on delayed sexual debut, promotion of Reproductive Health and the availability of “condoms”.
She also mentioned the establishment of friendly health service facilities.
De Castro said there is a continuing challenge to make teen moms abstain and delay further sexual activities through follow-up interventions and family planning programs.
“We are hoping to prevent young mothers from becoming recidivist teen moms,” she said.
Bernardina Tabin, assistant local civil registry (LCR) in the city, said there were 9,867 live births registered with their office in 2017. Out of the number, 966 were born of teen mothers aged 15 to 19 years old. This number included those from out of town, who gave birth in the city.
Dr. Maria Alice Torres, who handles the city health office’s maternal and neonatal child health and nutrition, said the city’s programs is focused on making the youth shy away from sexual activity at a young age. She explained that the risk is high for young mothers to develop hypertension, aside from having premature labor.
“Their uterus are not yet matured and has difficulty to hold on to enlarging fetus,” she said.
She also said that the youngest so far to give birth in the city is 13 years old.
In a study conducted by the Philippine Population Institute of the Philippines and Demographic Research Development Foundation in 2013, it was found that one in every Filipina teen aged 15 to 19 are already mothers. About 2.6 percent of Filipina teens with the same age had become pregnant with their first child while 13.6 percent have begun childbearing. **PNA
