Love School? Less Chance of Getting Pregnant

I can fondly remember the first day of kindergarten. I had my backpack packed full of school supplies that I had eagerly shopped for with my mother based on the school supply list sent to us over the summer. I remember picking out my two-pocket folders with the fat brown puppies on the front cover and my Big Chief tablet. I helped my mother lay my clothes out the night before my first day of school. As we walked through the front doors, I felt a little excited tickle in my tummy. Then I saw the warm, welcome glow radiating from my kindergarten teacher, Miss Bryant. Five minutes later, I was hanging on the door frame crying my eyes out begging my mother not to leave me and to “just take me home. Why don’t you just take me home!? I hate school!!!!” It took a few months of gentle daily prodding from my mother, but eventually I learned to love going to school which is great because a new study reveals that those youngsters who enjoy attending school are less likely to become pregnant teenagers. In fact, those programs designed to help the development of youngsters and combat deprivation have shown to be pivotal in lowering teenage pregnancy, according to a new report published in the British Medical Journal.

It has been widely reported that of all the countries in Western Europe, the United Kingdom has continually shown the highest teenage pregnancy rates. The authors of this recent report feel that the policies currently in place to help reduce the number of teenage pregnancies in this country have been lacking. One program in particular that has failed in doing so is the Young People’s Development Program (YPDP). In fact, when compared to other similar programs, more young teenagers became pregnant in this program.

Angela Harden, a professor hailing from the University of East London, feels that one main reason for this program’s failure is the fact that it targeted those individuals that were deemed “high risk” and brought them together. The YPDP program kept these high risk individuals out of the regular schools and instead placed them in alternative educational settings. Harden and her colleagues focused on studying those programs that are considered community or after school projects. Through their research, they determined that those programs that focused on helping to improve experiences at school for teenagers and that raised expectations proved more successful than other programs.

Ten previous trials and five other studies were researched by Harden’s colleagues. These previous research efforts centered around youth development and childhood interventions. Overall, approximately 40% of those youths that were participants in youth programs such as these were less likely to become teenage pregnancies than those youths that did not participate in any type of youth program. Results from their studies and analysis revealed that those students who did not like attending school, that did not have high expectations for their future and that considered their childhoods to be unfulfilling were more likely to become teenage pregnancy statistics. The researchers state that “young people who have grown up unhappy, in poor material circumstances, do not enjoy school, and are despondent about their future may be more likely to take risks when having sex or to choose to have a baby.”

The researchers in this study feel that higher quality sex education and educating youngsters about their contraceptives options would be highly successful in ensuring teenage pregnancy rates go down. They state that the data provides “a small, but reliable, evidence base that early childhood and youth development programs are effective and appropriate strategies for reducing unintended teenage pregnancy rates. Our findings on the effects of early childhood interventions highlight the importance of investing in early care and support in order to reduce the socioeconomic disadvantage associated with teenage pregnancy later in life.”