Teenage Pregnancy and Child Care.

Teenage pregnancy is pregnancy in a female adolescent under the age of 20.
Kenya has the third-highest teen pregnancies worldwide where one in every five adolescents aged fifteen to nineteen are already mothers or pregnant with their first child


Kenya's Ministry of Health reported 45,724 pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 19 in January and February 2022 - averaging about 775 a day.
Among the leading causes of increased teenage pregnancies are:

  • Lack of information about Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Sexual Gender Based Violence, Extreme poverty, and early and forced child marriages.
Teen pregnancy is a situation that ultimately alters a teen's future. Teenage mothers have many obstacles that average married adult parents do not face, many teens are unable to get a higher education, have a higher risk of being unemployed, and some even fall into depression. While teenage pregnancy can be a controversial topic it is a major part of our culture, there are people who look down upon pregnant teens rather than giving them support.

Child Care

A child of a teen mother often entails numerous risks which can affect the development of an infant. In most cases, since the pregnancy is not really wanted because mothers think their life has ended they begin to neglect the baby.

These risks include; low birth weight, complications of the mother’s pregnancy and delivery associated with poor prenatal care, and Infants may not also receive proper nutrition because the majority of teen mothers live in poverty.

Orphan Vulnerable Children (OVC)

OVC is a child between 0-17 whose father, mother, both parents, or a primary caregiver has died. These children are at a greater risk of experiencing physical, or emotional harm.

The five aspects that cause children to become vulnerable are disability, mental health, maltreatment, and being in out-of-home care. Beyond Support Foundation aims to promote community-based approaches to prevent, encourage and empower teenage mothers and to give quality lives to vulnerable children and orphans.

BSF offers Sexual and Reproductive Health Training in schools and communities, Education sponsorships for school dropouts, maternal healthcare, food distribution, and psychological counseling.

young-mother
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At the end of 2019 over 380,000 girls
including 10-year-olds were reported to
have been impregnated

Goal

The goal of the is to employ various interventions to ensure integral human development to young mothers and children and empower them with social sustainable services and counter react social and economic evils bred by individualism.

Objectives

  • To empower Young mothers and vulnerable children with sustainable services.
  • To meaningfully contribute to the global efforts to tackle root causes of teenage pregnancies.
  • To contribute to the professional and academic formation of Young mothers, Orphans and Vulnerable Children.

Activities

  • Education sponsorship for OVC
  • Child Care protection and Welfare
  • Technical empowerment of young mothers and ensuring their involvement in Education, health and employment
  • Distribution of start-up kits to young Mothers who have undergone business training to help them start up their business
  • Continuous Mentorship for young mothers.
  • Distribution of Basic menstrual hygiene products for vulnerable school going girls
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