The Commission on Population and Development (CPD) has raised the alarm on the rise in teen pregnancies, noting that registered live births by mothers age 19 and below reached 150,138 in 20222, up by 10.15 percent from the previous year, and urged Congress to pass the proposed Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Act which would help provide an action plan to reduce the social and economic costs of the problem.
Citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, CPD noted that a total of 3,135 adolescent girls younger than 15 years old gave birth in 2022 – a 35.13 percent increase from the 2,320 recorded in 2021.
“Although live births from adolescent girls, 14 years old and below, [are] just 0.22 percent of total live births recorded, CPD is still deeply concerned about the increase in adolescent pregnancy, especially among our very young girls,” CPD executive director Lisa Grace Bersales said in a statement.
Registered live births by adolescent mothers age 19 and below were already decreasing by an annual 8.61 percent from 2017 to 2021. But this trend changed in 2022, when births went up by 10.15 percent from the previous year.
Health authorities consider child-rearing among teen mothers “high risk” because of complications during pregnancy that may lead to higher numbers of unhealthy, or worse, dead mothers and children.
“We cannot overemphasize the significance of having the bill enacted,” Bersales said of the proposed Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Act in Congress, adding that the measure “will be essential in addressing the lingering concern of early childbearing and motherhood among a great number of our juvenile Filipino girls.”
The proposed law establishes the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Inter-Agency Council which will formulate and implement a national action plan and recommend relevant legislative and administrative measures.
The Provincial Health Office of Negros Occidental last year recorded 5,721 teenage pregnancies, and that although it is lower than the previous year’s 6,026, it has been described as being at an alarming level.
It would seem that more has to be done to prevent adolescent pregnancies which are not only high risk for both the mother and child, but also has the potential to derail so many young lives.*
