Teenage Pregnancy Sociology

Introduction
This assignment will consist of 4000 words based around the health issue of teenage pregnancy. I will then discuss the view from a ‘Biopsychosocial’ perspective, which will include explanations as to why pregnancy occurs amongst teenagers. This assignment will include a portfolio of evidence which I collected from various sources about teenage pregnancies.
About teenage pregnancy
According to, (UNICEF, 2008) Teenage pregnancy is defined as a teenage girl, typically within the ages of 13-19, becoming pregnant. Teenage pregnancy commonly refers to girls who have not yet reached legal adulthood. In the UK, sex is permissible for girls of sixteen years or over.
Most teenagers do not plan on getting pregnant at an early age, however,
This is because a lot of teenager have famous role models such as Jamie-Lynn Spears, also teenagers in today’s society can watch programmes on television which may influence pregnancy amongst teenagers such as MTV ’16 and pregnant’ and also the well-known film ‘Juno’ (Media Influences on Adolescent Pregnancy , 2011). Programmes like this have been criticised as ‘glamorising pregnancy’ (Live Science, 2012). Some teenagers are constantly searching for attention and affection and look for love in the wrong areas such as male company, this then can allow teenagers to take it further and become pregnant (Divine Caroline, 2013). In today’s society it also seems that if a friend gets pregnant then you have to as well! There can be many reasons why a teenage girl might get pregnant but there is one main judgement about teenage pregnancies, which is that ‘all pregnant teenagers get pregnant for the benefits and housing’ (Maevarish, 2010) . Rosen (1996) thought that poverty was the reason why teenagers got pregnant at a young age, what this means is that teenage mothers get pregnant to abuse the welfare system because they do not want to be in poverty anymore and need a ‘way out’. In contrast to that Krauthammer (1993) stated that ‘welfare encourages illegitimacy and teenage pregnancy’. In the UK, teenage pregnancy seems to be the highest in urban areas instead of the wealthiest areas likes Chelsea. Urban areas are classed
Villarosa (1996) expressed those teenage pregnancies where down to sexual exploitation of teenage women, she also argued that as a society we do not try and find the real causes of teenage pregnancies.
Another psychological influence is teenager’s being in care. This can influence teenager pregnancies because the teenagers may feel like they are not loved because they have been put into care (Teen Ink, N.D). When a child is put into care, they may feel like they are not wanted or loved, therefore, they may look for a male to get love from and to feel needed. This may later lead to teenage pregnancies. It is also known that if a teenager grew up in care or foster care the majority of children will go into care themselves, this means that it is a vicious cycle which may never end (Child Trends, 2011)
Strategies
There are many strategies that are in place to help reduce teenage pregnancies, these include ‘Teenage pregnancy strategy: Beyond 2010’; ‘Getting maternity services right for pregnant teenagers and young fathers’ and so on (Department of Education,