Dundee’s young women must be given more opportunities |in life if real inroads are to be made into the city’s stubbornly high teenage pregnancy rate, it has been claimed.
Official statistics show Dundee was again the teenage pregnancy capital of Scotland in 2008, with 78 young women out of every 1000 finding themselves pregnant in their teens the highest rate of all the country’s 32 authorities.
The figure had dropped from the previous year but still equates to around one in 12 of Dundee’s teenage girls getting pregnant.
The city’s political leaders last night said they believed a lack of options in life especially among young people from more socially deprived backgrounds was a major part of the problem.
North East Scotland MSP Marlyn Glen said, “For many teenage women having a child is a planned, life fulfilling ambition.
“However, claims that young girls become pregnant simply to get a council flat and benefits is at odds with research.
“This (research) suggests that vulnerable teenage mothers are three times more likely to experience post-natal depression and poor mental health for up to three years after the baby is born.
“For many of them, bringing up a child will prove difficult and to the detriment of the health of both mother and child with both likely to be living in long-term poverty.
“Setting more opportunities for ambition follow from success in reducing the risk of teenage pregnancy.
Ms Glen said she believed sex education generally worked but felt more emphasis should be placed on young men’s attitudes to the opposite sex.
She said, “To a very great extent the fundamental approach of sex education works for the vast majority of teenagers.
“However, all of these messages still face formidable opposition from peer group pressure and the misinformation about early sex and relationships that can circulate amongst teenagers.
“I think more emphasis might be profitably placed on issues for boys and young men about the sexual representation of women in society, the media in general, and TV and film in particular, pornography and about violence against teenage girls.”
Dundee West MP Jim McGovern said he did not believe the old cliche that young women were getting pregnant in order to get a house and benefits payments.
However he said the government had to do more to open up opportunities for young people to broaden their horizons.
Across Scotland as a whole there has been a downward trend in the number of teenage girls getting pregnant.
Photo used under Creative Commons licence courtesy Flickr user Polina Sergeeva.