THE report about the 760 underage pregnancies recorded in Chipata District, in Eastern Province, in the first quarter of 2019, should definitely be cause for serious concern.
This surly appears more like the problem of underage pregnancies, especially among non-school going teenage girls, is not getting sorted but becoming more serious by the day.
According to Chipata District Commissioner Kalunga Zulu, of the 2,816 pregnancies recorded during antenatal care in the area between January and March 2019, 767 were adolescents.
He said that according to the 2018 Zambia Demographic Health Survey preliminary report, teenagers with no education or only primary schooling (42 percent and 36 percent, respectively) were more likely to have started childbearing as compared to the 29 percent national average of 23 percent among teenagers with a secondary education.
And according to Chipata District Health Director Charles Fanaka, indication is that the prevalence of adolescent pregnancies was higher in the rural and peri-urban areas of the district than the urban areas – with Katambo Health Post in Paramount Chief Mpezeni’s area recording the highest proportion of adolescent pregnancies at 68.8 percent.
In our view, in as much as some strides have been made to address this situation, more require to be done in order to find a lasting solution to this issue which some people consider both a moral, social and health problem.
Some people have blamed the rise in teenage pregnancies on failure by some parents and guardians to provide for their daughters’ needs, that they tended to pressure them into early marriages instead of giving priority to education.
Others have also described poverty and family breakdown as major underlying causes of teenage pregnancies.
Truth is, whatever the case, teenage pregnancy is a growing concern in Zambia. And while some teenagers regard adolescent pregnancy as undesirable, they say they have few alternatives to marriage and childbearing particularly if they are not in school.
Experience has shown that some teenagers get unwanted pregnancies while others get married before they are biologically mature. In an ideal situation, teenagers are expected to be in school during their teenage years, as they are building their future.
From a psychological point of view, it is a known fact that teenage mothers may be physically less mature and less able to handle the demands of pregnancy, childbirth, and subsequent child care.
Teenage mothers may lack experience in child bearing and tend to be less psychologically mature and emotionally stable, resulting to poorer maternal and child health care and infant feeding behaviours.
From a health point of view, teenage mothers face greater risks of obstetric fistula (the creation of a hole between the birth canal and anal area during prolonged labour), hemorrhage, and pelvic bone immaturity increases the likelihood of cephalopelvic disproportion, which is associated with a higher incidence of premature birth, prolonged labour, and otherwise difficult childbirth.
“In order to reduce teenage pregnancies in the district, there is need to keep girls in school for as long as is possible, improve sexuality education in schools, increase access to adolescent health services, improve access to contraception and promote traditional values that encourage women to delay childbearing, including pre-marital sexual abstinence,” Dr Fanaka emphasizes.
Likewise, a Ministry of Education 2015 survey revealed that fewer girls get pregnant in secondary school than in primary school, a suggestion too that the longer the girls stay in school the less likely it is for them to get pregnant.
Other evidence also support this line of thought that keeping girls in school and enabling them to have an education has a positive effect on their personal development and has potential to prevent them from having underage pregnancies.
But in order to keep girls in school, there is a need for government to ensure that both infrastructure and human resources are available for them to attend school that the school environment is appropriate for their adolescence needs like having access to proper sanitary facilities, sexual and reproductive health information, and that they are not bullied particularly by boys and male teachers.
Government also has an obligation to ensure that appropriate information and services are made available to the girls to sensitise them on human rights and gender equality, the use of condoms and contraceptives as dual protection against pregnancy and STIs, and also remove restrictions on their access to reproductive health services.
In a short, stopping underage pregnancies should be everyone’s concern. As a nation, we need to do everything in our powers to ensure the trend is reversed or it would harm or seriously hamper our social, health and economic development in general.
