Teenagers: who are the adomamans?
teenagers. The pregnancies Teenage girls are defined by convention as maternity between 13 and 19 years old. They are very common in the world: nearly one in 10 women who give birth is a teenager (UN 1997 data). In Africa, where 30 to 50% of young married women are between 15 and 19 years old in Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and Senegal, 15% in Morocco and 5 to 15% in Algeria, pregnancies are part of normalcy. In Europe, if they were usual in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, these pregnancies are now perceived as very singular. In 2006, a woman gives birth at the age of 29.8 years on average (source INSEE). That same year, however, there were 37 births per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19 years. Why ?
Pregnant adolescents come from all walks of life, even though pregnancy intervenes more often in underprivileged environments and unstructured families. Other elements are often found, such as a history of institutional care of the teenager or her mother, a teenager herself born of a teenage mother, an absent or excluded father. The psychological study of the pregnant girl shows that it is sometimes, through her pregnancy and the arrival of the child, to repair the emotional and educational deficiencies she suffers (according to the research of Paul Bizouard and Philippe Duverger, professors at Rouen University Hospital). For others, in great difficulty, to become a mother allows to acquire a status, an income and to insert socially. There are also, especially in families of African or Gypsy origin, a culture and customs favoring early marriage and, as a result, the arrival of a child. Finally, it is sometimes the choice of a young couple (the future dad is however often major).
On the other hand, psychologists distinguish the desire to pregnancy and the desire for a child. Teenage girls may need to check that their body is "working". In these cases, the pregnancy most often leads to a voluntary interruption of pregnancy (for which parental consent has not been needed since 2002). In 1998, Professor Michèle Uzan, head of the department of gynecology and obstetrics at Jean Verdier Hospital in Bondy (93), reported that pregnancies half of the teenage girls have an abortion. "Sociologists, meanwhile, are unanimous: whether it is a sign of contestation or unconsciousness, the desire and the occurrence of a child in a teenager would correspond to a desire for recognition in a context of economic and social crisis ", report Anne Daguerre and Corinne Nativel in their report for CNAF," Early maternity in developed countries ", in 2004.
Even if, medically speaking, a young girl can be pregnant as soon as she is settled and give birth without any particular problem, in fact, the younger a woman is (especially before the age of 17), the more the complications of pregnancy are frequent. These are the same as those faced by adult women (haemorrhage, sepsis, hypertension, anemia ...), but the risks are higher for primiparous women, and teenage girls are 80% more likely. Socio-economic factors such as poverty, poor nutrition balance, lack of prenatal care (these pregnancies are often revealed late), or even the lack of emergency obstetric care (for those who hide their pregnancy until the end) can increase the risk of complications. For the child, pregnancies early onset induce twice as many premature deliveries and more intrauterine growth delays than in adult pregnant women (Uzan report).
Since the 1970s, the French government has worked hard on prevention: information campaigns in schools, on the Internet (Fil Santé Jeunes), easier access to contraceptives ... Since January 2002, pharmacists and school nurses can even deliver the morning after pill for free and anonymously to minors. Result: the number of pregnancies in recent years (-36% between 1980 and 1997, according to a report by the National Institute of Demographic Studies in October 2000). And contrary to what many feared, the number of abortions remained stable ...
Nelly Carpentier: Adomamans.The third and the link, Téraèdre editions.
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