TEENAGE PREGNANCY

British and highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe



British and highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe

In the past decade teenage pregnancy has become a key policy area in several industrialized countries. During the 1990s, both Britain and the USA identified teenage pregnancy as a national public health issue, alongside cardiovascular disease, cancer and mental health, requiring targeted interventions. A reason for this concern was that rates of teenage pregnancy were perceived to be higher than those in other developed countries—a notion that has been taken up and inflated by the media. For example: `Britain... has a sky-high level of teenage pregnancies.' [Daily Mail, 8 March 2001] `The sexual behaviour of our children and teenagers has now reached such unprecedented levels of recklessness and damage that it is becoming a horror story running out of control.' [Daily Mail 28 June 2002]

In our opinion, such claims are based on selective comparisons. Here we argue that, contrary to the way in which it is frequently presented, the teenage pregnancy rate in Britain is neither high nor dramatically increasing.

When rates of teenage pregnancy are judged `high' in England, the comparison is usually with our European neighbours. Figure 1Figure 1 comes from the Teenage Pregnancy Unit report of 19993 and shows the live birth rate to women aged 15-

The rate in the UK is indeed higher than that in many other countries. However, it is also substantially lower than those in New Zealand and the USA. Further, despite the fact that current policy in the UK aims to halve teenage pregnancy rates (defined as conception rates) for under 18s by 2010,3 these figures are for live births. A country with a rate similar to or higher than that of Britain might seem to do `better' because pregnant teenagers have greater access to termination services (or use them more)

Early on, Dutch children learn about sexuality and contraception at school. Here, students in Almera, in northern Holland With the highest use of contraception among young people worldwide, the Netherlands have attracted international attention. How would you react if your boyfriend refused to use a condom? How do your friends feel about condoms? Write down what you think they will answer and ask them if you were right. This open talk is how some teachers in the Netherlands approach sexuality with students between 12 and 15 years old. Subsidised by the Dutch government, the “Lang leve de liefde” (“Long Live Love”) package was developed in the late 1980s, when Aids became recognised as a threatening health problem. “Aids was an impetus for sex education in schools,” says Jo Reinders of Soa-bestrijding, the Dutch foundation for STD (sexually transmitted diseases) control, which developed the package in consultation with churches, health officials and family planning organizations. “It forced teachers to become more explicit and to discuss norms and values using a participatory approach.”

A closer look at international comparisons reveals a more complex picture. Singh and Darroch looked at rates of `adolescent pregnancy' (again the rates examined by these ...