By Sonny Angara
A recent Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) report showed an alarming increase in girls getting pregnant during their formative years. The data indicates that births to mothers aged 10 to 14 years old have increased every year since 2016 even while the overall birth rate among all adolescents has gone down. According to the PSA, the rate of pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 14 increased from 11 percent or 1,903 births in 2016 to 2,113 registered births in 2020.
While the decline in pregnancies among 15- to 19-year-old girls is a welcome development, the increasing rate of even younger girls becoming mothers is indeed a cause of concern that cannot be left unchecked. What’s worse is that majority of registered adolescent live births involved men who were three to five years older than the girls — in other words, who were adolescents themselves.
Aside from the social and moral issues surrounding teenage pregnancies, there are also serious implications on their health in the short and long term. Evidence shows that pregnancies and births taking place before the girls’ bodies are fully developed is one of the leading causes of disability-adjusted life years and deaths among girls. In addition, adolescent mothers are more prone to higher blood pressure resulting to seizures (eclampsia) and systemic infections than women aged 20 to 24 years. Babies of adolescent mothers also face higher risks of low birth weight, preterm birth and severe neonatal condition, based on the findings of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Unicef noted that early childbearing and delivery can derail a girls’ healthy development to adulthood since many of them are pressured or forced to drop out of school to raise their children. There is also data citing the negative social consequences on the girls such as a reduced status in their homes and communities, stigmatization, rejection, and violence by family members, peers and partners and early forced marriage.
Legally, significant strides have been taken to protect young girls and to prevent adolescent pregnancies. Republic Act (RA) No. 10354, or the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012, orders the provision of age and development-appropriate reproductive health education and includes teen pregnancy as among the relevant subjects. Meanwhile, RA 11648 increased the age of consent from 12 to 16 years of age, to tighten protection against consensual, abusive, and exploitative sexual acts involving minors.
In the previous administration, then President Rodrigo Roa Duterte issued Executive Order (EO) No. 141, declaring as a national policy the implementation of measures to address the root causes of the rising number of adolescent pregnancies and to strengthen the adolescents’ capacity to make autonomous and informed decisions about their reproductive and sexual health by ensuring access to comprehensive sexuality education and reproductive health and rights services.
EO No. 141 mandates several national government agencies such as the Commission on Population and Development and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to formulate action plans and to ensure the implementation of related programs and projects for the prevention of adolescent pregnancies.
To further these efforts and to revisit the implementation of related laws, I filed Senate Resolution No. 462 to look into the rising prevalence of pregnancies among 10- to 14-year-olds in order to come up with a whole-of-government approach in developing a policy framework to prevent early childbearing and its negative consequences.
One of the interventions worth considered in preventing teenage pregnancies and its consequences is through a policy shift towards the inclusion of men in the issue of reproduction through a focus on boys’ education, which is a practical and transformative approach that is acceptable to both men and women according to Unicef. A research article by Australian medical scholars found that health care professionals and educators “did not consider young males to be of importance” in the prevention of adolescent pregnancy, when boys should be acknowledged as part of this issue that includes the acceptance of traditional masculinity leading to unintended pregnancies.
Another approach is through the provision of improved access to better maternal care for pregnant and parenting adolescents. Take for example Mexico’s multisectoral National Strategy for the Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy that includes the establishment of sexual and reproductive health care centers for adolescents in municipalities determined to be at high-risk for young pregnancies and the promotion of socio-emotional and technical skills development including remedial actions to address basic skills deficits of these youths.
These are just some initiatives that can be undertaken in order to reduce and, eventually, get rid of unintended pregnancies among young girls. We all have a role to play in protecting and promoting the welfare of all young Filipinas.
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Senator Sonny Angara has been in public service for 18 years — nine years as Representative of the Lone District of Aurora, and nine as Senator. He has authored, co-authored and sponsored more than 330 laws.
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Email: sensonnyangara@yahoo.com | Facebook, Twitter & Instagram: @sonnyangara/WDJ