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Latina teen pregnancy rate deserves recognition as national crisis
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by urbano411 | May 7, 2008 at 11:36 am
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Today is the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. It's a day that should be solemnly observed by every Latino family with teenage children. Why?
Because while the overall national rate of teen pregnancy has declined, it has actually increased among Latina girls. Sarah Brown, CEO of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, said, "The teen pregnancy rate for Hispanic teens increased slightly between 2003 and 2004 and, for the first time, Hispanic teens now have the highest rates of both teen pregnancy and births. Also, data released in December 2007 show a 3% increase in the teen birth rate between 2005 and 2006, the first increase in the teen birth rate in 15 years."
These statistics force the Latino community to ask ourselves a very important question: Why do young Latinas want to get pregnant?There's no clearer sign that too many Latina teens are having babies than the title of a segment on a popular Dallas Latino hip hop radio station — Baby Daddy Hotline. Girls who have problems with the fathers of their children call in to complain to the DJ. There's always a full line-up of calls.
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at 11:00 on December 8th, 2008
I am a 28 old mother of a 14 month old baby boy and all I can say is that is not easy the father of my son and I are still together and I could not have imagine it doing it by myself. We society need to encourage our young people that there more to life out there an we need to find ways to promote that, I would like to tell those young teen to get an education and to wait as much as possible to have kids.. There is so much that they can be doing with their life, traveling, learning, finding themselves or even helping their community. I think it would be a good idea for young mother with not a such a big gap in age to talk to teenage girls about our life expereince and what we can do to help them wait before making this kind of decisions.