UK Struggles with Multiple Teenage Pregnancies

San Antonio, Texas is a lovely, historical city. I was born and raised there and love to visit it every chance I get. However, in the part of the city I grew up in, teenage pregnancy was so normal, it was almost weird if you didn’t have at least one child by the time you graduated high school. In fact, my next door neighbor had three children by the time she graduated high school. Go figure. So, it was a surprise to me when I read that England is battling the growing number of teenage pregnancies. I thought that was just a Texas thing! Since 1998, the England-based Teenage Pregnancy Strategy has been striving to cut the teenage (under 18 years of age) pregnancy rate by half. According to the Office of National Statistics, their campaign appears to be working as the conception rate for those under 18 years of age was shown to be at its lowest level in over two decades by 2006. That marked an over 13% decline since the beginning of the campaign.

In fact, there has been an increase of teenagers who experience repeat pregnancies that is giving experts a reason for alarm. According to researchers and experts in the health department at The University of Nottingham, there is a very strong need for vast improvements to be made to the services and guidance currently being offered concerning contraceptives. This call to action comes after observing the rise in the past 15 years of those women under the age of 20 who are going back to the clinics to get second and even third abortions. These abortion statistics were gathered from both Wales and England between the years 1991 and 2007 by the Office of National Statistics and the Department of Health.

According to Jacqueline Collier, a professor in the field of Health Services Research at the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Physiotherapy, “Current routine contraceptive advice and services are failing to prevent repeat pregnancies to increasing numbers of young women and it may be necessary to develop targeted services to support and guide teenagers after a first abortion. These services would complement the introduction of the United Kingdom’s Family Nurse Partnership scheme, which is currently being implemented to support and guide vulnerable first-time young mothers.”

Amongst the countries that comprise Western Europe the UK is shown to have the highest teenage pregnancy rate; in addition, there is a steady rise of women who are aborting during their second and third pregnancies. Gathering this information has proven to be quite difficult, especially when determining what proportion of teenagers are getting pregnant a second time around. The reason for this is that teenagers who get pregnant are usually unmarried and get registered as such. Thus, the information used was collected and offered by those teenagers who were visiting a clinic to have an abortion; at that point, the teenager is asked about any previous abortions or births they might have had. It is through these figures that the UK is able to determine how many women get pregnant more than once before reaching the age of 20; thus, they are able to determine if there is an increase in these numbers.