Major Cause Of Teenage Pregnancy Attributed To Poverty

Madam Olivia Agbeko, Midwife of the Dodo Amanfrom Health Centre in the Kadjebi District of the Volta region has blamed the alarming rate of teenage pregnancies in the country on poverty.

She explained that most of the victims were from poor homes and were unable to properly take care of their daily needs.

She observed that many of the teenage pregnant girls who come to their facility for antenatal services were either school dropouts or unemployed thus putting them and their unborn children in a more precarious situation.

Madam Agbeko was addressing some clients in Dodo Amanfrom at the weekend as part of an innovative health educational campaign strategy being implemented by Savana Signatures, an NGO in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service aimed at improving maternal and child health in three regions of Ghana.

The Technology for Maternal and Child Health (T4MCH) project is being implemented in the Northern, Upper West and Volta regions with funding from Global Affairs Canada (GAC).

Madam Agbeko appealed to parents to take good care of their children in order to prevent them from falling foul to pre-marital activities stressing that men who impregnate teenagers should be severely dealt with to serve as deterrent to others.

She commended Savana Signatures for introducing such an innovative educational technology which aided them in their outreach programmes explaining that many pregnant women received periodic voice and sms messages on pregnancy and child care.

Mrs Diana Isaac, a pregnant woman who had been receiving periodic voice and sms messages through the T4MCH project urged the implementors to extend the facility to all pregnant women to enhance quality health and reduce maternal and infant mortalities.

Mr Abdul-Rashid Imoro, Programmes Manager of Savana Signatures said the T4MCH is being implemented in nine districts in 33 health facilities targeting 30,000 women and 28,000 men to reduce maternal and new born mortalities.

'The immediate outcomes of the project is to improve delivery of essential health services to pregnant women and new mothers and also to improve on the utilisation of essential health services by pregnant women and newborns', he said.

Mr Imoro explained that more health facilities had been included in the project to ensure many people benefited stressing that voice messaging component of the programme would be translated to include more languages.

He suggested the need for sexual reproduction and rights education to be introduced to young people in the communities to reduce teenage pregnancies that contributed to early marriages.

GNA