What causes teen girls to ignore a pregnancy until the birth?
March 31, 2010 by admin
Filed under Pregnancy Questions
I’m talking about the occasional case of a young woman who somehow ignores a pregnancy until a baby suddenly arrives. This often ends in tragedy when the girl panics and abandons the child. What influences could lead to this behavior?
1) On a small scale – what sort of family dynamics might she have, what sort of personality, etc. What might pre-dispose a young woman to ignoring a pregnancy?
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2) On a larger scale, is our society somehow leading to this problem? Is there such shame involved with teen pregnancy? Is it a lack of resources for mothers? Is it an emphasis on career over motherhood? Or, could it be an emphasis on avoiding abortion? Any and all ideas are welcome.
A pregnancy is often not seen as a blessing, even for women with adequate resources. Even a surprise pregnancy in a 25 year old with a job is greeted with “oh no!” by friends and family. That’s what I mean by “an emphasis on career over motherhood”.
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if the teen is really young and hasn’t started having REGULAR periods, the skipped periods may be normal for them. And some of them don’t show, or jsutify the changes enough not to realize that they really are pregnant. I know an adult woman with PCO who did not know about her pregnancy till she went into labor. I see how that could be a blessing
juniper it’s a process of denial until reality hits & realize they don’t have the resources to care for one. young girls don’t have the experience, wisdom, responsibility, or knowledge to carry out what must be done.
when society says this is what you deserve then extreme mechanisms set in such as the woman who drowned her 2 girls.
my guess would be straight up denial mainly because if a lack of menstruation doesn’t arose her curiosity, putting on weight won’t either. Perhaps she’s waiting for a sign from God.
Blaming society just creates a scapegoat, something to pin the blame on. There’s no longer shame involved with teen pregnancies in this culture anyway. For heaven’s sake they’re handing out birth control in middle school. A lack of resources? I seriously doubt it unless she lives on a mountaintop by herself. What would an emphasis on career over motherhood have to do with your question? The baby’s still going to be born. Avoiding abortion is the only answer with any credence – to me.
speaking as a person who was pregnant I can answer the reasons that I did not tell anyone. Yes I knew I was pregnant. Did I try to ignore it? yes I did. My reason (although I know how stupid they are now) was mainly fear. Fear my mother would disown me, fear my boyfriend would leave me, fear that my friends would no longer want to be around me. Fear that my older sister would kill me. Shame that I had let myself get this way. Fear that people at school would find out.
I waited so long to tell an “adult” that a doctor would not see me as I was to far along and had not seen a doctor. The only doctor who would take me was the local health department. Now 17 years later and my daughter I gave birth to is now the age I was when she got pregnant. I make sure she is informed and aware of what can happen. I knew she had a steady b/f for a year, I took her down and had her put on birth control. Want to break the cycle.
The other part of this is that society is teaching children “ignore it and it’ll go away.”
When the baby doesn’t go away, the teen panics and it ends in tragedy.
the main reason is fear. many of these girls are scared to death – and with reason, having a child is a major decision.
there are resources but not enough – we need adequate sexual health information (Not just preaching about abstinence), we need access to information, access to services. many girls are afraid to see a GYN. contraception prices are now going up – it will prevent women from getting services. also, many planned parenthoods – that offer sliding-scale fees – are not allowed in a community or are protested against – this would make the girl fearful to go to a clinic.
also, boys have to be involved too.
and this is a problem for society, not just the individual (we are in the “social science” category here guys). the usa has the highest rate of teen pregnancy for any industrialized country – - find out why & we will be able to work towards solving our problem.
a lot has to do with our being prudes, bush’s plans for abstinence and not real education, and christian right groups. yes, we don’t want to talk about it – just wish it away – but it won’t go away on its own….
1. She might never have learned the signs of an oncoming pregnancy; she might not want to admit the fact that she might be pregnant to herself or others.
2. “Emphasis on career over motherhood?” Where the hell did that come from? In all likelihood, she had no access to contraception and just went ahead and did it. It’s been proven that girls with abstinence-only sex education are more likely to get pregnant early. That’s the problem with our society. People ignore facts and focus on faith.
Teenagers, as a group, are still children enough that they believe that ignoring a problem will make it go away, somehow. I think there’s less shame in teen pregnancy than there was in decades past. You’ll probably find that the teenagers who carry pregnancies in secret are girls with high expectations of themselves who are afraid to “let down” parents, teachers, coaches, etc.
i have no idea why women do this. it’s such a strange phenomena. but, i will say, if birth control were over the counter, and plan b and abortions were accessible and cheap everywhere (in the south they are very hard to come by), it could only DECREASE the incidence of girls ignoring pregnancy until birth. abstinence only education is also garbage and can’t be helping girls protect themselves.
I’m sure there are all kinds of things at play in these instances:
1. Fear
2. Strict upbringing
3. Embarassment
4. Immaturity
Bottom line, I don’t believe that our society can be blamed for this one, and CERTAINLY, I don’t see a correlation between the career vs. motherhood point. They are teenagers, and I don’t suspect they ignore their pregnancies because they want to focus on their education, leading to a career.
All in all, most teenagers are still little girls. They are not old enough to accept the responsibility for their actions. Babies having babies…