Materia Medica Malaysiana

10,000 teenage pregnancies a year

ABOUT 10,000 adolescent girls in Malaysia get pregnant and give birth every year.

This is a cause for concern and there is a need to empower girls with both education and access to methods that help prevent unwanted pregnancies, said Dr Ravindran Jegasothy (right) of the Malaysian Medical Council’s ethics committee.

These girls are also at risk of maternal mortality which is two to four times higher in adolescent mothers than in those in their 20s, he said. Infant mortality is also estimated to be about 30 per cent where adolescent mothers are concerned.

Dr Ravindran, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, was presenting a paper at a four-day regional roundtable conference on population, sexual and reproductive health and poverty, held at Istana Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, from last Tuesday.

“What we need to do is to get away from the moralistic attitude that sex doesn’t happen in this group,” he said.

Dr Ravindran said religious education was important to send the message that sex was not something to be freely indulged in but at the same time, its existence among youngsters should not be ignored.

A 2000 study on adolescent pregnancies in a semi-rural clinic in Malaysia also showed that 65 per cent of adolescent mothers were unmarried, not well educated and had a low usage of contraceptives.

A pilot anonymous HIV-screening programme in Johor also indicated that adolescents, or those aged between 13 and 19 years, were involved in activities that put them at risk of contracting the virus.

“Despite religious education and despite our social values, there are girls and boys in the country who are having sex and we know from the experience of other countries, that this figure is going to increase,” Dr Ravindran said.

The good news is that the school health programme today is providing basic information on reproductive health, he said.

“Girls are being told how they can become pregnant, nobody is hiding the fact anymore and that is good.”

Boys, too, are being told how to avoid getting their partners pregnant and how they can avoid contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

It must also be emphasised that hospitals in Malaysia do not discriminate against unmarried mothers as some people might assume, said Dr Ravindran.

While not denying that unmarried mothers faced social stigma when they sought treatment, Dr Ravindran said the girls were generally treated with empathy.

“They are usually referred to social workers and NGOs, who will continue to provide the emotional and sometimes financial support that these young girls need,” he added.