Panelists At Forum Say Media Portrayals Of Teenage Pregnancy Mask Negative Impacts

Main Category: Pregnancy / Obstetrics
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health;  Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 28 Oct 2008 - 10:00 PDT

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Well-publicized celebrity teenage pregnancies and depictions of teen pregnancy in films represent a "squandered opportunity for a serious national discussion of teen motherhood," panelists said at a recent public policy forum organized by the University of Chicago's Chapin Hall Center for Children, the AP/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. Research presented at the forum -- called "The Real Costs of Teen Pregnancy" -- found that at a minimum, births to teens ages 17 and younger costs the public $7.6 billion annually. The calculation includes both the lower taxes these often impoverished families contribute and the cost of social services for the teens and their children. Most of the 400,000 births among U.S. teens each year occur among young women who are unmarried and receiving public assistance, according to the National Campaign To Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. The teen birth rate increased by 3% between 2005 and 2006, after 15 years of decline, according to the AP/Post-Gazette.

Over the past year, teen pregnancy has "been in the spotlight in contexts detached from the sobering statistics," the AP/Post-Gazette reports. Television actress Jamie Lynn Spears gave birth at age 17, and Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin (Alaska) announced that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant and plans to have the infant and marry the father. In addition, the film "Juno" depicted a pregnant teen who sought out a family to adopt the infant. According to the AP/Post-Gazette, each of the "real and fictional teens come from supportive, financially stable families and seemed to be on track to have an array of future opportunities that a more typical teen mom might lack." Sarah Brown -- a panelist at the forum and director of the National Campaign To Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy -- said, "We are, as a society, uncomfortable with sitting down and having conversations about what we expect. When is the last time we said, as a culture, 'Babies need adult parents?'" Saul Hoffman -- a University of Delaware economist who compiled the estimate of the cost of teen births -- said that children born to teens are more likely to be in foster care and less likely to graduate from high school. He added that daughters born to teens are more likely to have teen births themselves and that sons born to teens are more likely to be incarcerated (Crary, AP/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/24).

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