Britain has Europe's highest teenage pregnancy rate, how would you bring it down?

[SecondhandRose]

This one will cause trouble I know. How does Britain break the cycle of teen pregnancies leading to young, on the breadline single Mums with fathers (of the baby) that just wander off or are discarded?

My theory is rather right wing and probably won't go down very well so I just wondered what everybody else thinks.

Custy, Shit a brick woman I sit at your feet in awe!

Spot on. Totaly spot on!

Aspiration is what makes the silly little buggers use a condom. God knows it what what did it for me. Horny little devil that I was, I wanted to go to uni and I knew that a baby would deep six that plan for years and years.

So I practiced contraception! Beacuse I had something to aim for that was a little longer lasting than an unprotected shag.

pmsl!

i remember sex ed,sitting there bored out of my brain as somebody went on about things id read about 100 times already in my sisters just 17 mags.
i dont think many teenagers actually listen to teachers whe n it comes to that sort of thing.i personally didnt care what my teachers said.

now my ,other,on the other hand,would have skinned me alive if she thought id so much as even looked at aboys willy.

You see teenagers know that is isn';t going to happen to them is it? {eye rolling, shhrugging shoulder , god mother you are so lame!emoticon needed)

I know I teach 'em.

They know what do do, they just don't really believe that they will get up the duff and so can't be arsed to use it.

I'll give a million quid if you show me an NT girl of 14 who can't name several different types of contraception. They can all bloody talk the talk. They can't be arsed to use the bloody things! Because they don;'t see past the shag. Give them something worth losing, and they will put on a condom before you can say 'ejaculation'

I agree 100% chakara!

At university, I taught sex ed to other teen girls.

Girls.

Together. ALONE.

Sorry, but 14-year-old girls are not going to ask questions about sex in a room that contains 14-year-old boys.

But they'll open up to an 18-year-old girl who's able to share her own experiences.

I think they need to be segregated for this.

i dont believe the mothers are innocent in all this either - i said contraversionally again.

if your kids are out regularly - becuase you let them - in the ark - or late at night.

if your kids are hanging around with a crowd

if your kid dreeses like a tart to go out and meet the boys

then why not take her to the doctors and get an implant?

i wasn't any of the above btw and it still happended to me so its not an exclusive list by all means - by wtf are some mothers thinking?

if there is so much as a sniff of a boy mentioned - my daughter is off the doctors!

that meant to say my mother not my other.i went to a catholic school and i still knew all about pregnancy,stds,contraception etc.i also knew there was no 100% reliable method other than abstinance,and i didnt want to have sex when i was a teenager cos i 1)didnt want to be labelled a slag and 2)didnt want to get preg cos i wanted to get a job and have a life.and i didnt want to let my mum down!

i see so many teenage girls where i live who think so little of themselves they think they have to have sex,to 'fit in' or so their boyfriend wont leave them,and they dont believe they can do anything with their lives other than have babies.
thats where the education is needed.not this 'well ur going to do it anyway so u may as well use a johnny' attitude.

"My theory about this is that it's not just about girls who don't know the facts of life getting pregnant by accident or while drunk, it's also about teenage girls who want to do something useful rather than just being unemployed and going out clubbing, but don't have any prospects of a job and don't see education as being for them, so they decide to have a baby because that actually is a positive and useful way for them to use their time.

Therefore the answer is to provide them with more alternatives such as better vocational training, more flexible educational opportunities so it's easier to drop back into education if you feel like you have failed at school, and of course better job opportunities"

I agree with this entirely. I work as an employment advisor for single parents. Many of the women on my caseload got pregnant when they were still at school. Girls know that having unprotected sex means they might get pregnant - the fact is, as Kathy points out, many of them want to. Not because of free housing and income support, but because they see starting a family as being both an achievable and rewarding life choice - one of the few available, in socially deprived areas.

I'm curious how sex ed in handled at school in Europe.

Some excellent ideas here (apart from cracking down on benefits which is just bloody inhumane).

I think the big factors for me as a teenager were a. ambition and b. having a baby sister ie 14 years younger than me so I had an idea just how hard it is to look after a child.

Agree with everything that's been said about giving girls opportunities and hope for the future as well as bringing people into schools to talk to children - boys and girls.

Also using animatronic dolls that act like real babies ie cry a LOT (and making boys take them home too). Also agree with Custy re. educating them about money and how £80 a week is not enough to live well.

Chakara's account of sex ed lessons shows there's a long way to go to make them any darn use, too.

Tha animatronic dolls are excellent. the school I work in uses them in the child development GCSE classes. When the kids come in at the end of the 24 hour seesion they are grey with tiredness, and to a girl swear they will never have kids!

sadly we don;t have enough to let all the kids have a tryout

I live in Hull where there are LOADS of young parents, I was speaking to a midwife recently and she said that she considers anyone aged over 18 an older mum in Hull!
I do think its about a lack of anything else to do, and its something lovely in your life. TBH if I had no money, a bit of a shite house, a future working in MacDonalds I would probably have a nice little baby to love to.

And I don't have children, so here is my take on it, I don't have a baby because I have SO much to loose if I get pregnant. BUT I do have my painfully broody moments where I have to repeat endlessly that I cannot have a baby now, because even though I know its hard beyond words, I still find it hard to get past imagining that lovely cuddely snuggely baby. And I do think that image is a big factor in teenage pregnancy.

I think the lack of social mobility in our society is to blame. In my experience European cultures have not separated so radically along class line as ours has. They don't have such huge barriers to poorer people aspiring for something better.

If you are 16 here, living in an overcrowded council house with your mum and possibly a boyfriend/stepdad, facing the choice between university/huge debt and minimum wage job/staying-at-home, it is not surprising that starting your own family in your own home seems appealing. You get home, money, security and a lovely cuddly baby to boot.

I think the answer is to provide much improved life prospects and a much fairer share of wealth in our society, but based around work rather than benefits ideally.

I think break down the taboos of sex.

From my perspective it would have been good to have somewhere to go where you could get advice on contraception & stuff that didn't involve a long journey & where you also didn't feel people were looking down on you for being underage.

Underage people will have sex - I think it'd be better to encourage them to be sensible rather than just carry on recklessly.

Expat, I'm Italian, don't have a clue about teenage pregnancy rate in Italy, which probably varies from region to region. Certainly it is not discussed much, so I think that it's not as great a problem as here. When I was at school (I started university in 1989...) there was no sex education whatsoever. Or if there was any I don't remember. It was more or less left to the family. And friends. In Milano where I grew up there was also quite a strong network of family planning clinics, a legacy of the feminist movements in the Seventies. Again, I have no statistics regarding Italy and can't generalize. Certainly teenagers do have sex just as much. Perhaps alcohol consumption is a bit less, although I've heard it's increasing. Also family network and support I feel is still a bit stronger than in England (though decreasing). If i remember well the number of women on the pill is higher (I think France has the highest rate of women on the pill).

agree with goingquitelymad re social mobility

I wish I'd gone on the pill much earlier - not just because I was teenage mum but because I would have avoided several years of period pains.

Just it never occured to me as a younger teenager that it would help with that :S ... so even that education would have been helpful.

Message withdrawn

Not sure about the solutions and ideas for cutting teen pregnancies.

I have a 15 yr old son who has been going out with his gf since March.I have always spoken to him about relationships love and making love.I have shared with him some of my own experiences and tried to make him see that being close to someone doesn't always mean having sex.I know him and his gf are intimate but NOT having sex.He has said that for now they are happy and are not going to rush the physical side as they are too young.

But like Custy i will provide condoms and do the family planning trip with them.I def think it would be better having them having safe sex than me being a granny now.

I also think us having an 11 yr old ds2 and also dd's aged 2yrs and 12 weeks has shown both of them how hard it is to have small and big children.His gf will be having the doll home from school in November and ds will be staying at her house to "help" take care of the baby.

I do think you have to speak to teens about sex before they are teens to have any chance of stopping them.My friends however have told their kids not to "do anything" and believe i am condoning sexual activity and she will def end up pg.I am not condoning what they may or may not be doing but teenagers will be doing it anyway and i can only speak to my son and hope that they can wait till they are both older and do it safely.

I think that telling teens not to do anything is asking for the worst to happen. It will make them feel that they can't go for advice if it was needed & also isn't likely stop them doing anything as it would be easy enough to have sex for years without your parents finding out!

I agree with agalch & custy. I don't think its telling teens that they can go out & have sex - just letting them know that they are able to talk about it like adults with their parents & that they need to be careful.

I definitely believe drink has a huge role to play...just think back to when you were 14, getting off with boys was fantastic, its free and its new..lots of adults struggle to contain their sexual desires ..so think of the kids who are learning self control and battling human natures strongest urge..without the alcohol they might have the slightest chance of saying no and remembering they want to be something someday.
Add in a few bevvies and well .. things start to hot up and mistakes happen.

Did you get pg as a teenager Nolastar?

I started having sex at 15 and managed not to get pg until I was 29.

I think accidental pg is a separate issue from teenage parenthood - abortions aren't that hard to get, and plenty of older women find themselves in exactly that position.

I agree with Kathy (nice Hallowe'en name ) and Custy - a lot of teenage mums haven't got pg accidentally, and it's a terrible shame that there's nothing else for them to look forward to in life.

No I didnt..god know how though ..