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Teen Pregnancy

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Teen Pregnancy:
Babies Having Babies!
Deondra Crenshaw
Virginia College
Nur. 2320
10/4/2017

You're still a baby yourself! This is the first thought that comes to mind when I see a teenager with child. Even though it's extremely disturbing to see, it has become more and more common these days. Is this the new “trend”? Or should we question the parenting skills the child is receiving? Maybe this girl has been messed with by a relative or a family member. Whatever the case maybe, how can we help these kids in preventing pregnancy at an early age. Lets try to figure out where we went wrong as parents, caregivers, nurses, etc. in raising and educating these babies about having babies. In 2014, there were 24.2 births for every 1,000 adolescent females ages 15-19, that is 249, 078 babies born to females in this age range and nearly 89% of these birth occurred outside of marriage (Office of Adolescent Health, 2016). According to the CDC, in 2015, a total of 229,715 babies were born to women aged 15–19 years, for a birth rate of 22.3 per 1,000 women in this age group. What’s even more disturbing, not all teen pregnancies are the their first pregnancy. In 2014, one in six births (that’s 17%) to these 15-19 year olds were females that who have already been pregnant and have had one or two babies already (Office of Adolescent Health, 2016). Even though we can’t predict what a teenager would do or even make a teenage act accordingly when unsupervised, we can instill in them factors that may just influence them in a positive way. “A child plays attention to more than you think”, is a phrase that i’ve heard many times from my elders; this is a true fact. Children are very much aware of their surroundings, in which, plays a major role in their upbringing. In saying this, many people, family members, and the communities that these teens live in have been connected to these high numbers in these youth having babies. Social determinants of health are conditions in the environments in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks (CDC, 2016). Certain social determinants, such as high unemployment, low

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