When Children Give Birth to Children

By Mallika Aryal Reprint | | Print | |En español

Teen mothers give birth to 81 out of every 1,000 children in Nepal. Credit: Mallika Aryal/IPS

CHAMPI, Nepal, Jul 11 2013 (IPS) - Radhika Thapa was just 16 years old when she married a 21-year-old boy three years ago. Now, she is expecting a baby and is well into the last months of her pregnancy. This is not the first time she has been with child – her first two pregnancies ended in miscarriages.

“The first time I conceived I was just 16, I didn’t know much about having babies, nobody told me what to do,” Thapa tells IPS in between assisting customers at the vegetable store she runs with her husband in the small town of Champi, some 12 km from Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.

After the second miscarriage, Thapa’s doctors urged her to wait a few years before trying again, but she was under immense pressure from her in-laws, who threatened to “find another woman for her husband if she kept losing her babies”.

What might seem like a horror story to some has become an accepted state of affairs in Nepal, the country with the highest child marriage rate in the world.

On average, two out of five girls are married before their 18^th birthday. The legal age for marriage in Nepal is 18 years with parental consent, and 20 without, a law that is seldom observed, least of all in rural parts of the country.

Studies show that child marriages occur most frequently among the least educated, poorest girls living out in the countryside.

According to the 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), 17 percent of married adolescent girls between 15 and 19 years are either pregnant or are mothers already. In fact, research shows that adolescent mothers give birth to 81 out of every 1,000 children in Nepal.

The survey also shows that 86 percent of married adolescents do not use any form of contraception, meaning that few girls are able to space their births.

Disturbed by trends in countries like Nepal, the UNFPA spotlighted teen pregnancy as the theme for this year’s World Population Day, observed annually on Jul. 11.

“Globally there are 16 million girls aged 15-19 who give birth each year – they never had the opportunity to plan their pregnancy. It is a developmental issue that goes beyond health,” Vallese stressed.

In reality, teen pregnancy can be a matter of life and death. Adolescent girls under the age of 15 are up to five times more likely to die during childbirth than women in their 20s.

The number one cause of death among girls aged 15-19 relates to complications in childbirth. Young mothers are at a high risk of suffering from complications such as obstetric fistula and uterine prolapse.

Furthermore, “the first child born to a mother aged 12-20 is at greater risk of being stunted or underweight, suffering from anaemia or even of dying before the age of five,” says Vallese.

Less visible, but equally troubling, is the host of social complications that teen mothers must navigate.

“When girls get pregnant their education stops, which means a lack of employment opportunities and poverty,” says Bhogedra Raj Dotel of the government’s family planning and adolescent sexual reproductive health division.

According to the UNFPA, 37 percent of married adolescent girls are not working and 76 percent of those who are employed are not paid in cash or kind for the work they do.

Menuka Bista, 35, is a local female community health volunteer in Champi, assisting about 55 households in her area. Bista has been advising Thapa, to ensure that the girl has a safe pregnancy.

“Radhika (Thapa) is educated, she knows she needs to go to the doctor and eat nutritious food for her baby to be safe, but she doesn’t make decisions about her body: her husband and in-laws do,” Bista told IPS.

This observation finds echo in research carried out by various experts: according to Dotel, husbands and in-laws make all the major decisions about a woman’s reproductive health, from what hospital she visits to where she will deliver her child.

For this reason, Vallese believes it is important to train husbands and family members on reproductive health and rights.

The penetration of the Internet and mobile phones into every aspect of daily life, coupled with a massive wave of migration of young rural men into urban areas, has created “a significant teenage population that engages in pre-martial sex,” she stressed.

Whether the teenaged girls are married or unmarried, sex education plays a major role in decreasing the number of pregnancies.

Sex education is a part of the national school curriculum from Grade 6 upwards, but teachers are not trained, and are uncomfortable talking about it. When the subject comes up in a classroom, most teachers simply skip that chapter, or defer to a health worker to explain the process of reproduction.

“There’s a general (perception) that teaching about sexual health makes girls promiscuous, but we have found it to be exactly the opposite,” says Shova KC, chair of a local cooperative that works with women in Champi.

Public health experts, meanwhile, have criticised the government for not implementing existing policies that could spare thousands of young girls from the trauma of complicated pregnancies so early on in life.

For instance, “more than 500 youth friendly service centers have been set up but progress is about more than just ticking boxes,” UNFPA Assistant Representative Latika Maskey Pradhan, told IPS.

In the future, she said, advocates must keep a close eye not only on how policies are designed but also on how they are implemented.