Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Study links adolescent pregnancy to troubled families

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Girls from troubled family backgrounds stand 11 times more risk of unwanted pregnancy than those from happy family circumstances in Kerala, according to a new study.

The incidence of ‘unmarried adolescent and young women pregnancy’ could be on the increase in the State despite a very high female literacy rate of 87 per cent, according to A. Sheelamoni, Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Government Medical College in Alappuzha, who did the study.

She undertook the study when the trend came to her notice during her professional practice in the medical colleges in the State.

“There is indeed a trend, which needs to be addressed,” she told The Hindu. “What you see on the hospital records is only the tip of the iceberg.”

She studied the background of 181 unmarried girls and women who had approached the medical colleges in Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode and Alappuzha for abortion in the recent years. An identical number of girls and women in the same age group of 10 to 24 approaching the hospitals were interviewed for the purpose of comparison.

The study, which won her a Ph.D. from Kerala University recently, found that religion and socio-economic status did not have much statistical significance in the incidence of unmarried pregnancy. According to the study, the key factors driving the trend included problems in the family, lack of productive engagement, inappropriate parental control and absence of basic knowledge on sexual and reproductive health.

As much as 64.5 per cent of the unmarried pregnant girls or young women covered by the study came from “problem families.” The problems included divorced or separated parents, polygamous families, parents with marital disharmony, mentally challenged parents, old and debilitated parents and single parent with little other support.

In 44.2 per cent of the cases, the young unmarried women who got pregnant were not engaged either in studies or in some other work.

Parental control was either too lax or too severe in 76 per cent of the cases. Sixty-two per cent of those covered by the study had little knowledge about sexual matters and reproductive health. A majority of them were unaware about the real consequences of sexual relationship.

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