Countless number of news spread across the nation on cases of the abandonment of babies

shocking almost 1.5millions readers. It is also a worrying trend at Ministry of Health over the growing of
number of patients suffering from AIDS and HIV. There are various cases for the police to investigate over
suicide, death and rape. The ultimate and reasons behind all these chronic issues is teenage pregnancy. So,
what is pregnancy? According to Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (2010), pregnancy means the state
of a being having a baby developing inside her body whilst teenage pregnancy is pregnancy in female
under the age of 20. There are two types of teenage pregnancy; one of which involves marriage and the
other baby born out of wedlock. However, the number of teenagers pregnant out of wedlock is high and
increasing each day which is depressing for the nation to control. The government has undertaken several
measures nevertheless none of the action seems to succeed. Many questions are thrown to the relevant
authorities, schools and parents over this issue, and many point their fingers blaming each other rather than
uniting together to resolve this social issue. There are many factors that contribute to the cause of teenage
pregnancy and the effects brought upon on this epidemic issue.
The first factor that contributes to teenage pregnancy is that teenagers are given too much freedom
by their parents. The misbehavior, lack of morality and judgement of teenagers are as a result of the
capitalist society. In this new modern era, parents are working with various jobs which keep them busy.
However, due to the rise of cost of living many hold on to a second job to earn extra to meet up to their
monthly expenses. Families living in urban areas and metropolitan cities have higher cost of living
compared to those living in the outskirts of the cities. Those jobs will help them to pay their installments,
housing loans, credit card debts and other modern living costs. We are now living in a materiliastic society
where money rules, the rich get richer, and more powerful. Teenagers nowadays lack moral, belief and faith
in religion. Parents are too busy with their work and some even work for 24 hours for seven days. They do
not have time to spend their moments with their children which will result in poor of communication
between the parents and their children. Their children do not get enough moral teaching and discussion on
religion is barely touched in these families. Many had thought that by sending their children to schools and
religious classes will help their children comprehend religion. Some parents portray negative attitudes in
front of their children which later children will tend to copy. Moreover, teenager that is living in a singleparent family is likely to have early sexual intercourse due to lack of parental supervision and more easygoing parental attitudes compared to teenagers with living in a two-parent family. (Santelli, Lowry &
Brener, 2000).Since teenagers are given too much freedom, they have the tendency to be involved in
alcohol and substance abuse accompanied by unrestricted interaction with the opposite sex. This will ignite
the sparks of lust and passion in youngsters which ultimately lead to teenage pregnancy.

The second factor is psychological factors. Peer pressure or peer influence is normal in our lives
and it is something that all teenagers have experienced once in their lives. There are no chances for them to
skip that stage of life. It is natural. Peer pressure is something everybody has to deal with at a stage in his or
her life. Children especially during adolescent period, begin to spend a lot more time with their friends and
less time with their family. Thus, this would make them more susceptible to the influence of peer pressure.
It can have a positive or negative on their behavior, understanding about values, human relationship and
judgment of teenagers. It depends on a persons social group can make him or her to follow one path or the
other. We are greatly influenced by people around us. If the people we mix up with in a social group
indulge themselves in pre-marital sex, we will have a tendency to follow them. Therefore, the more the
teenagers discern their peers who actively engage in sex, the higher the chances of them to have sex.
(Romer, Black, Ricardo, Feigelman, Kaljee, Galbraith, Nesbit, Hornik, & Stanton) However, there are two
kinds of pressure; one is a direct and the other is indirect pressure. Teenagers especially girls are easily
enticed by their lover or boyfriend to sex at their own free will which is a direct pressure. In the meantime,
indirect pressure is when someone sees everyone around him or her talked and has sex freely, he or she
might think that there is nothing wrong with having sex without marriage. In addition, weak family
relationships fail to provide the emotional support that teenagers require. Lack of attention and affection
from family resulting in depression. Hence it forces them to seek love and support from other people
especially members of the opposite sex.
Regardless of the other factors, the most significant and ultimate factor that attributes to teenage
pregnancy is the media. According to Kellner (n.d.) the media has lead and prompt the audiences
throughout the world towards social problems. The media has derisively influence the parents. Media
especially reality television shows have become popular over the past few years. The glamour and attention
surrounding expecting celebrities in reality TV show is one of the factors that prompt teenage girls towards
pregnancy. They portray a false view to many young girls. Celebrities like Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes
pampered their only child, Suri with fame, glamorous life and wealth and have made young ladies blind
with the false assumption and dream of having a kid would make them famous like the celebrities. The
latest reality television show about teenage pregnancy: 16 and pregnant which had became a hit in the
MTV. This show is only about young expecting mothers and the struggles they face. It does not look like
fairy tale and doesnt show the right way young ladies are expected to be. The young mothers have to
struggle to face the hardship and it is an unglamorous life. New discoveries with new technologies where
humans can access to various new information and knowledge with a single click of the hand: the internet.
Internet is used to connect with friends in various parts of the word and learning new knowledge. However,
teenagers misused it by accessing pornography video online. According to Chris Sekar (2010), teens
engage in sex due to the easy accessible of porn online. He even states that one of the oldest industries in
the world is sex industry and the internet has made it easy to access. The Malaysian Communication and
Multimedia Commission (2010) briefed that indecent material consist of pornographic video clips and nude
personal photos are circulated without any authorized permission. This situation is getting much worse and

each day as the age of initiation for sex in the country is getting younger with children as young as twelve
already have sex as part of their life.
Last but not least, lack of sex education has led to pregnancy at young age among teenagers
nowadays. Unplanned pregnancy and the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases continue to be a
prevalent problem among adolescents. These problems often result in adverse health, social and economic
consequences for teenagers and their families. Currently, there is a little practice-based information
concerning interventions designed to improve communication comfort about sexually related issues within
families, especially between two parents and their adolescents. Adolescents often engage in a wide range of
high-risk sexual behaviors that can result in many negative aspects and consequences for themselves and
their family. Many programs serving teens and their families failed to utilize social learning or other similar
approaches to facilitate effective communication about sex between parents and their adolescents. This is
because especially in this conventional culture of Asia, it is a taboo to talk, to discuss, and to teach children
about sex. Yee (2012) even states that, the society here is too awkward to even say the word condom out
in public. Hence, the lack of communication between parents and their children on sex allows the children
to search from other sources to learn about sex which they end up watching pornography video online. In
addition to that, according to Wikipedia (2012), teenagers are too shy and afraid to search for more
information on preventing pregnancy and used traditional method to prevent pregnancy, Young women
constantly think contraception is only about the pill and condoms and hardly know on other methods.
Moreover, Wikipedia (2012) reveals that they are easily negatively influenced by second-hand stories on
method of contraception from their friends and the corrupted media.
There are many effects of teenage pregnancy and one of the effects is that, it may lead to illegal
abortion and worse, baby-dumping. Many private clinics establish everywhere to provide illegal abortion
service for the unwanted pregnancies. Based on true experienced, several methods by professional doctors
or even bogus doctors are used to remove the unborn babies and the young ladies have to endure
excruciating pains and some may lose their life in the process of removing the baby out from the womb.
Nevertheless the most inhumane and intolerable issue that causes a great tremor across our nation everyday
is baby-dumping. Countless number of babies are killed due to the unstable mental and emotional young
mothers. Without any feeling of guilt and mind full of irrational thoughts, they killed their own babies
mercilessly. Diseases like AIDS, HIV and cervix cancer are suffered by teenagers today due to the
lackadaisical attitude towards premarital sex. Lack of knowledge on safe sex has leads them to these
serious disease at a young age.
In conclusion, there are many factors that lead to teenage pregnancy such as the media, freedom,
peer pressure, and lack of sex education. Due to their ignorance, teenagers suffer the consequences of
pregnancy and practicing unsafe sex. Parents, schools, the authorities, the government and any established
NGOs should get together to solve this problem before it inflicts further into the society. They should
organize campaign on unsafe sex and the consequences of practicing it. Parents should try to communicate

with their children about sex just so they know what sex is and the harm practicing it without enough
knowledge. Moreover, the government should implement sex education in the school as to be guidance for
the teenagers to understand better about sex. The media should play a vital role as they are the ones who
influenced the teenagers to be sexually active. They should remove even the slightest content of
pornography material from movies, dramas, documentaries or any program that can contaminate the minds
of young kids. Everyone has to work together to amend this problem from throbbing further into the
society.

References
Carvalho, M. (2011 September 2). Pregnant teens enter school. The Star.
Decision soon on sex education. (2010 October 3). The Star.
HariatiAzizan. ( 2010 July 25). Teens engage in sex due to porn. The Star.
Kellner, D. (n.d). The media and social problems. Retrieved from
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/
No school for pregnant teens. (2010 July 27). The New Straits Times.
Ostrow, N., & Randall, T. (2008 December 29). Virginity pledges fail to trump teen lust
in look at older data. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com
Romer, D. Black, M. Ricardo, I. Feigelman, S. Kaljee, L. Galbraith, J. Nesbit, R. Hornik, R, C. &
Stanton,B.
(1994). Social influences on the sexual behavior of youth at risk for HIV exposure.
American
Journal of Public Health, 84(6), 977-985.doi:10.2105/AJPH.84.6.977
Santelli, J, S. Lowry, R. Brener, N, D. & Robin, L. (2000).The association of sexual behaviors with
socioeconomic
status, family structure, and race/ethnicity among US adolescents. American Journal of
Public
Health, 90(10), 1582-1588. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.90.10.1582
Teenage pregnancy. (n.d). Wikipedia encyclopedia. Retrieved at July 17, 2012, from
http://www.wikipedia.com
Yee, K. (2012 July 7). Talking about contraception.The Star, p. 16

Title: Factors that cause teenage pregnancy and the effects

Prepared by: 1) Husna bt.Abd. Hamid
2) NurulAtiqah bt. Osman
3) Norrina bt. Ismail
4) Siti Khadijah bt. Jasni
Prepared for:

2011275204
2011412008
2011860702
2011258412

Madam Hajah Noor Roslinda Dato Haji Amir

Ishak

August 15 2012