The Telegraph

Girls as young as 13 will be pressed to have contraceptive jabs under Government plans to “urgently” bring down teenage pregnancy rates.

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Read the complete article and related information at Ministers tell councils to push contraceptive jabs and implants

What they are not telling you is that Depo is also used as a castration drug on sex offenders in prison.  First HPV vaccination and now birth control without parental consent?

Girls as young as 13 have been fitted with contraceptive implants at school without their parents knowing.

The Telegraph

10:46AM GMT 07 Feb 2012

Health chiefs have defended sexual health services going into schools, saying teenage pregnancies had dropped by 22 per cent as a result Photo: Alamy

The procedure was carried out in Southampton, Hants, as part of a government initiative to drive down teenage pregnancies.

Read the complete article and related information at 13 Yr. Old Girls Get Contraceptive Implants at School

Society for Menstrual Cycle Research

re: Cycles

July 29th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling

In our May 28 “Saturday Surfing” round-up of recommended reading, we highlighted Lynn Harris’ essay for The Nation about new research on “reproductive coercion”: the alarming frequency with which young men try to get their partners pregnant, often by sabotaging birth control methods. Yesterday, GritTV with Laura Flanders interviewed Harris and Elizabeth Miller, the researcher who conducted the study, about the phenomenon and public health responses.

Watch the Video here…

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Read the complete article and related information at Reproductive Coercion

The Nation

Leyla W. couldn’t figure out where her birth control pills kept going. One day a few tablets would be missing; the next, the whole container. Her then-boyfriend shrugged and said he hadn’t seen them. She believed him—until she found them in his drawer. When she confronted him, he hit her. “That was his way of shutting me up,” says Leyla, who is in her mid-20s and living in Northern California. (For her safety, Leyla wishes to withhold her last name and hometown.) He also raped her and, most days, left her locked in a bedroom with a bit of food and water while he went to work. (A roommate took pity and let her out until he came home.) Thanks to the missed pills, she got pregnant twice, the second time deciding against abortion.

Despite his role in getting her pregnant, when Leyla decided she did not want to have an abortion, her boyfriend did a 180, screaming at her belly that he didn’t want the baby to live, threatening to “kick the baby out” of her stomach and even, one day, pushing her down a flight of stairs. Her pregnancy was “hell,” says Leyla. Perhaps mercifully, it ended at thirty-seven weeks—the baby arriving three weeks early, her doctor speculated, because of his mother’s profound stress. (Her doctor was aware, to some degree, of the abuse, and told Leyla the best thing she could do was leave.)

Leyla eventually did just that, getting herself out of her abusive relationship and into a support group. “I do ask every day why I stayed with him for seven years,” she says (though she now says that witnessing her father abuse her mother corrupted her sense of what counts as “normal” in a relationship). She married a “wonderful” man last November who is, she says, “a great father” to her son, Eddie, now 2.

Leyla’s story turns a modern fable on its head: that of the woman—call her the femme fertile—who conspires to get pregnant, perhaps by “forgetting” to take her birth control pills, as a way to “trap a man” and force marriage—or at least keep him in her life. In reality, experts researchers on dating violence and unintended pregnancy say, it’s Leyla’s version of that story is all too common.

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Read the complete article and related information at When Teen Pregnancy Is No Accident

the star online

Malaysia

April 25, 2010

By Dr MILTON LUM

Statistics show that there are more pregnancies outside of wedlock, and hence more babies born out of wedlock. with its subsequent consequences. This article seeks to empower the young, their parents, and everyone who care about them to prevent unintended pregnancies following unprotected sexual intercourse.

IT is common to come across media coverage of abandoned newborns since the new millennium began. What is worrying in recent reports is that some of the newborns have been harmed as well.

Whilst the actual numbers may be unknown, the Social Welfare Department has stated that they recovered 315 abandoned babies between 2001 and 2004, and police statistics indicate an average of 100 cases annually.

It is a fact that sex and reproduction are pivotal to humans and that young people are sexual beings. They account for a disproportionate burden of global sexual and reproductive ill health i.e. the number one killer of young women is pregnancy and childbirth related causes; 45% of all new HIV infections occur in those aged between 15 and 24 years; and there are about 500,000 new curable sexually transmitted infections occurring in young people every day.

Young are already having sex

Various local data indicate that many young and unmarried people are already having sex. The decrease in the age of menarche and the increase in the age of marriage, together with socioeconomic changes, have contributed to this trend.

The Second National Health and Morbidity Survey (1996) reported that 1.8% of male students were sexually active with the incidence in male students twice that of female students. The relationships were heterosexual in 63.2% and homosexual in 19.9% (13.7% gays and 6.2% lesbians). 9.4% had sex with prostitutes.

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Read the complete article and related information at It’s an emergency! Pregnancies out of Wedlock

Medical News Today

Morning sickness, also known as nausea gravidarum, nausea/vomiting of pregnancy (NVP) , emesis gravidarum or pregnancy sickness is a condition that affects over 50% of all pregnant females. The woman feels nauseous, sometimes vomits and is often tired. Women who use hormonal contraception or HRT (hormone replacement therapy) may also have morning sickness symptoms.

Typically, morning sickness occurs in the early hours of the morning, and gradually improves as the day progresses, hence the name. However, some experts say that the term is a misnomer as it can come on at any time of day. The nausea may be mild, or severe enough to induce vomiting.

Sometimes symptoms may be so severe that the woman suffers from dehydration, weight loss, alkalosis (a dangerous drop in the normal acidity of the blood) and hypokalemia (low blood potassium). When symptoms are very severe, the condition is called hyperemesis gravidarum, and develops in approximately 1% of all pregnancies.

According to the National Health Service (NHS), UK, about 28% of women experience nausea without vomiting.

If nausea and vomiting is to occur it will usually do so during the 6th week of pregnancy, but in some cases it may strike during the second week. For many women the symptoms of morning sickness are their first signs of pregnancy. Most pregnant women find that the morning sickness improve after the 12th week of pregnancy. Unfortunately, for some women symptoms persist throughout their pregnancy.Typically, morning sickness occurs in the early hours of the morning, and gradually improves as the day progresses, hence the name. However, some experts say that the term is a misnomer as it can come on at any time of day. The nausea may be mild, or severe enough to induce vomiting.

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Read the complete article and related information at What Is Morning Sickness? What Causes Morning Sickness?

(CNN) — Most sexually active unmarried young adults believe pregnancy should be planned, but about half do not use contraception regularly, according to a study published Tuesday.

The survey of 1,800 people age 18 to 29 was conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

“What is surprising is just how wide the gap is between single young adults’ intentions and behavior on this very important issue,” said Bill Albert, chief program officer at the organization.

Also, 29 percent of women and 42 percent of men said it is at least slightly likely they will have unprotected sex in the next three months — and it’s quite likely or extremely likely for 17 percent of women and 19 percent of men.

The discrepancy between both wanting to plan pregnancy and having unprotected sex may have something to do with a focus in recent years on abstinence-only education, said Laura Lindberg, senior research associate at the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute.

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Read the complete article and related information at Gaps found in young people’s sex knowledge

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Prevention First Colorado
Media Contact: Toni Panetta
(303) 394-1973 ext 17(626) 676-3482
contactus@PreventionFirstColorado.org

National Research Parallels Colorado Findings
r.e.Factors Contributing to Unintended Pregnancy

Denver (Dec. 15) — Today, the Washington, D.C.-based National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy revealed that among unmarried women in their 20s nationwide, fully seven in 10 pregnancies are unplanned. These findings reflect the reality that sexually active, unmarried young adults who do not want to be parents right now are not using birth control consistently and correctly to prevent themselves from unintended pregnancy.

The national research, released today in “The Fog Zone: How Misperceptions, Magical Thinking, and Ambivalence Put Young Adults at Risk for Unplanned Pregnancy,” is consistent with statewide, phone-survey research into causes of unintended pregnancy among Colorado women aged 18-44 carried out by Prevention First Colorado.

Among Colorado women, the Prevention First Colorado research found:

Nearly one-fourth (23%) of Caucasian women on Medicaid and one-fifth (18%) of Caucasian women living in small towns or rural communities reported using no contraceptive as their primary method of birth control compared to 15% of all Caucasian women who participated in the survey.

Nearly 6 out of every 10 (57%) Caucasian women on Medicaid in the survey had had sex without birth control when they did not want to be pregnant — compared to 39% of all Caucasian women in the survey.

More than three-fourths (77%) of Caucasian women on Medicaid and 58% of Caucasian women living in rural and small-town communities in Colorado had experienced an unintended pregnancy compared to 42 percent of the full survey sample.

Planning appeared to be the most important factor in contraceptive use: Colorado women who reported behaviors consistent with planning for contraceptive use were more likely to use effective birth control methods, less likely to experience unintended pregnancy, and less likely to report having had sex without contraceptives when trying to not get pregnant.

Colorado women with a bachelor’s degree or higher reported more planning for contraceptive use and fewer barriers related to partner-to-partner communication and psychological concerns than women with lower degrees of educational attainment.

Colorado women living in small towns or rural areas indicated that they plan for contraceptive use less and experience more psychological barriers than their suburban counterparts.

Colorado women who changed their contraceptive method during the last year, those with less than a bachelor’s degree, and those living in small-town or rural communities were among demographic groups more likely to have experienced an unintended pregnancy.

Costs related to contraceptive counseling, drugs, devices and procedures and accessibility of contraceptive counseling, drugs, devices and procedures were more significant barriers for women on Medicaid in Colorado and those living in rural or small-town communities than for the full sample of women surveyed.

Prevention First Colorado Statewide Telephone Survey

Prevention First Colorado contracted with an outside vendor to place more than 2,100 calls in fall 2007 to qualifying households to yield 801 completed surveys of women aged 18 to 44 throughout Colorado. The audience sampled included an over-representation of Hispanic women (Hispanic women represented 30% of completed surveys compared to 21% of Colorado’s total female population). Once a woman aged 18 to 44 was identified, additional screening questions were asked to eliminate women who were pregnant or not sexually active. Verbal consent was given by the women to participate in the study and they were informed that they could terminate their participation in the study at any time. Finally, the survey questions were administered and the women were assured that their phone number was not associated with their data and the call was terminated. The survey took an average of 12 to 13 minutes to complete. A summary of findings from the telephone survey is available online at:
http://www.PreventionFirstColorado.org/uploads/How%20She%20Does%20It.pdf.

The telephone survey constituted the second of four research components carried out by the Prevention First Colorado program, following a survey administered through health-care clinics throughout Colorado and preceding four focus groups and 40 in-depth interviews. All Prevention First Colorado research examining unintended pregnancy in Colorado is available online at:
http://www.PreventionFirstColorado.org/research_program.php.

“The Fog Zone: How Misperceptions, Magical Thinking, and Ambivalence Put Young Adults at Risk for Unplanned Pregnancy” released by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy will be available online at:
http://www.thenationalcampaign.org

Prevention First Colorado is a program that includes a coalition of non-profit organizations convened by Denver-based NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado Foundation whose mission is to support the reproductive health of women and girls in Colorado. The primary focus is increasing the overall health and economic self-sufficiency of Colorado women and girls by empowering them to prevent unintended pregnancy. Prevention First Colorado believes that every child in Colorado should be a wanted child and that every woman and man in the state should have the appropriate education and knowledge to make effective family planning choices to create healthy women, healthy children, and healthy families.

Read the complete article and related information at Twenty Somethings Report 70% Unintended Pregnancy Rate

Girls in rural communities like Katine have very little financial independence. But attitudes are slowly beginning to change…

Annie Kelly 
Monday 17 August 2009 09.00 BST

Guardian.co.uk

For the majority of girls in Katine, money is something that is made, saved and spent by other people.

“Many girls in a remote rural areas like Katine will have no direct relationship with money at all,” says Barbra Babweteera, country director at Plan Uganda, an international NGO running programmes for young women across the country. “The majority of girls and women will never have any money or land of their own, but yet will work all their lives generating money they have no rights over.”

……A recent Unicef report underlined the wider implications of girls’ inability to find the money for things like sanitary towels. The report found that girls and female teachers often refuse to attend school during menstruation because of inadequate toilet facilities or embarrassment. This results in absenteeism for up to a fifth of school time, which “may very well be the first step towards dropping out,” says the report.

……In Uganda 31% of girls get pregnant in their teens, the highest rate in sub-Saharan Africa. According to Plan International nearly 40% of these pregnancies are unwanted or unplanned.

“If you’re a teenager in a place like Katine, the only power you have is your sexuality, it’s your only bargaining tool,” says Cathy Watson, director of the Straight Talk Foundation, a Ugandan NGO that produces magazines, newsletters and radio shows for young Ugandans about sexual health and HIV prevention.

“It’s a vicious circle because girls are using their bodies as economic commodities, which leads to many of them getting pregnant and being forced into early marriage and has big implications when it comes to sexual health, all of which negatively impact on their ability to fight their way out of their reliance on men for their survival.”

The economic status of girls has more wide-reaching implications for the lives of women in Uganda. Watson explains that while sons are seen as income generators, many daughters are considered little more than an asset, another piece of property, and while this mindset exists it is nearly impossible to create opportunities where women gain some kind of financial power or economic independence.

Campaigners point to the issue of “bride price” as evidence of how girls have become commodities in many communities across the country.

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Comment from Leslie

I have excerpted pieces from this excellent article – because I think that this is a global issue for adolescent girls to one extent or another.  This is a must read for parents – also for health educators and counselors.

Read the complete article and related information at Why girls are economically challenged

We Need to Invest in Female Teens Born Into Poverty, Violence, Abuse and Other Destructive Cycles

Original article written by Jeannette Pai-Espinosa, WeNews commentator, and published in the June 23, 2009 issue  of  Women’s eNews and reprinted here with permission. Editor’s Note: The following is a commentary. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily the views of Women’s Enews.

(WOMENSENEWS)–A June 23 ABC Primetime special called “Family Secrets” did a good job of presenting the issues and challenges of one segment of the teen parent population.

Nearly all the stories shared in the special were of young mothers with family support to help them face the trials and to share in the joys.

For these young parents, an unintended pregnancy was the result of absent, forgotten or malfunctioning birth control in the life of an otherwise “average” or even “model” young adult. Still, even for these teens, we saw in ABC’s special how hard it is for them to make it all work.

For other young parents, however, a birth control failure is the most recent misfortune in a lifetime of poverty, abuse, neglect, addiction and violence. Traumatic experiences have left these young people searching high and low for safety, belonging, love and support. And sometimes, creating a family seems like the only way to get it.

Moreover, in many cases teen pregnancy is a long family tradition. We refer to these young women as young mothers at the margin, because they live at the edge of the American dream, working to break the destructive cycles into which they were born.

There isn’t any meaningful dialogue about addressing the deeply rooted social issues faced by this population.

Largely Invisible

They remain out of sight and largely invisible.

It’s not because they are a rarity.

Each year thousands of young women and men become parents with no support system and no means of providing for their family.

In 2006, there were more than 350,000 unmarried teenage mothers ages 14 to 18 in the United States, and many of them wind up parenting alone.

Meanwhile, funding for services and programs to support them and their children continues to disappear.

California public health officials say proposed budget cuts could hurt or end the state’s Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health Program, which provides care for high-risk women and teenagers during pregnancy and for up to one year after giving birth, according to the Press-Enterprise newspaper in Riverside, Calif.

Focusing significant national energy, work and resources on young mothers at the margin is the right thing to do.

A Solid Investment

It’s also a good investment. Young mothers need the chance to develop new skills and relationships so they can learn how to become good parents who are personally and financially self-sufficient.

If we don’t provide them the support, no one will, and we will never be able to reduce the intergenerational poverty and reliance on public programs.

We know what works: social support, education and good jobs, made possible by high-quality health care, childcare, affordable housing and reliable transportation.

Young mothers and their children have much to offer this country as part of the work force, volunteers and dedicated parents.

We don’t need to look any further than President Obama to see how a young mother with the support of her family can change the world. Imagine a country where all young mothers had the same support.

Jeannette Pai-Espinosa is president of The National Crittenton Foundation, which supports the empowerment of vulnerable girls, young women and their families. For more information, visit http://www.TheNationalCrittentonFoundation.org

Women’s eNews welcomes your comments. E-mail us at editors@womensenews.org . -

Read More Commentary

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Read the complete article and related information at Let’s Do More for Young Mothers at the Margin