Show Children having children Adriana Herrera Community Reporter In Utah adolescent pregnancy is a persistent health and social problem that has serious consequences for the community Last week was Teen Pregnancy Awareness Week Hamilton diversity chair for Clubs and Organizations was planning a presentation Thursday afternoon on how to prevent unintended I pregnancies The speaker she scheduled had a minute last-minute emergency and was unable to tomake tomake tomake make it Teen births in Utah account for approximately 11 percent of all births in the state In 1997 teens ages 19 15 gave birth to over infants Until recently rates had remained fairly stable since the early ear y There are currently teenage pregnancies in Utah each year year 73 73 percent of which result in live births and another 11 II percent result in abortions Although these numbers are very high Utah's teenage pregnancy rate declined by 18 percent between 1992 and 2000 Hamilton says that public schools are not doing a good job at educating teens on unwanted pregnancies or contraception Abstinence is great but reality is kids are arc having sex she said Twenty years ago most teen births in Utah were to married couples Today more than half of the births of teens aged 19 15 occurred outside of a marriage r I I I I I 2 L Li r i it t kL U I. I i- i J T T aI I y 1 Many teens are arc not putting there infants up for adoption as often asit asit as asit it was being done in the Only 4 percent of Utah teens place their infants into adoptive care Also Utah teens are less likely than any other teen in the nation to abort their unborn child Hamilton states that public schools seem to only teach abstinence and leave out any other important information According to The Guttmacher Institute an institute that advances sexual a arid d reproductive health worldwide Utah women are in need of contraceptives Of these women need p publicly supported contraceptive services service because they have incomes s below the federal poverty level or Pregnancy Continued on AS Teen Pregnancy t 4 Continued from A Al 1 0 because they are sexually active teens Fine Arts and Lectures Vice Nice President Pauline Fonua stated that the purpose purpose of teenage pregnancy awareness at is to make students aware of what other students might night be going through and to build tolerance within the school Fonua agrees with Hamilton about public schools needing to bring more awareness to their students She says that in college students can easily get information on contraception and pregnancy yet high school students are unable to get the adequate information that would be useful to them According to the Utah Department of Health more Utah teens are using family planning services than in the past Although they are more frequently used Utah state law says that parents must give permission in writing before their unmarried children under age 18 may receive information about family planning services from a state-funded state agency The Utah Department of Health and The Division of Community and Family Health Services states that low social economical status and ethnically diverse populations are over represented in Utah's teen pregnancy rates teen mothers suffer more poor outcomes than older mothers such as low birth weights and infant mortality states their Web site In addition children of teen mothers are more likely to encounter other health risks than children of older mothers |