ILOILO City – In 2020, Western Visayas saw 8,409 adolescent females between 10 and 19 years old getting pregnant and giving birth, according to the Commission on Population (PopCom).
“Very alarming” was how PopCom regional director Harold Alfred Marshall described the situation.
Adolescent parents are ill-equipped to meet the challenges of rearing children, and this sorry situation would lock them in a vicious cycle of intergenerational poverty and violence, he explained.
There are also dire health risks, said Marshall.
Maternal and child mortality and unsafe abortions are high among adolescent mothers, he said.
Region 6’s youngest case of adolescent pregnancy in 2020 (the latest data) was an 11-year-old girl from from Silay City, Negros Occidental.
There were also three 12-year-old mothers; 11 13-year-old mothers; and 79 14-year-old mothers.
Certainly, there are societal costs, said Marshall, such as stigma or rejection by parents and peers, and teenage mothers not being able to finish their education.
Also, added the PopCom director, teenage mothers are more likely to experience violence within a marriage or partnership.
How high is adolescent pregnancy in Western Visayas?
Nine in every 100 live births in 2020 recorded by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) were adolescent pregnancies.
This is about nine to 10 percent of the total live births in the region – “still high”, said Marshall.
In 2015, PopCom recorded 11 adolescent pregnancies for every 100 live births in the region.
The latest 2020 data from the PSA showed Negros Occidental with the highest cases of adolescent pregnancy at 2,912 or 34.63 percent of the 8,409 live births from 10-19-year-old females.
Second was Iloilo province with 2,317 cases and third was Capiz with 956 cases.
Guimaras had a low incidence of adolescent pregnancy at 237 and so was Bacolod City with 184.
Why are the region’s teenagers getting pregnant?
Marshall attributed the cases to the following:
* teens’ lack of information or education about sexual and reproductive health and rights
* teens’ inadequate access to reproductive health services tailored to young people
* social pressure to marry
* sexual violence
* early and/or forced marriage
“PopCom will continue to assist local government units and partner agencies to develop well-informed, empowered, healthy, and responsible adolescents,” said Marshall.
Also according to the director, at the aggregate level, a high teenage pregnancy rate could be an enabling factor to the country’s high population growth.
“Twenty percent of our population are between 10 to 19 years old. When they enter their child-bearing years, we better watch out and prepare,” said Marshall./PN
