DUMAGUETE CITY, Negros Oriental, Aug. 19 (PIA) -- The Negros Oriental Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO) noted a decreasing trend in teenage pregnancy cases in the province since 2017.
Provincial Population Program Officer Portia Francisco said in 2017, there were 4,595 teenage pregnancy cases logged in the province; 4,067 in 2018; 3,767 in 2019; and 2,795 in 2020.
Francisco said the massive information campaign on adolescent reproductive health conducted by IPHO which started in 2017 have contributed to the drop in the province’s teenage pregnancy cases.
“Almost 6,000 students were oriented on the adolescent reproductive health for the whole province. Aside from that, we also have advocacies on the ill-effects of teenage pregnancy cases, and our coordinator on HIV/AIDs they also included adolescents for HIV voluntary counselling and testing,” Francisco said.
IPHO also capacitated 135 services providers, including medical doctors, school nurses, and midwives in providing adolescent health care for young people.
Meanwhile, a similar downtrend was also observed in the province's capital, Dumaguete City.
City Population Officer Lourdes Taburaza said cases in 2017 were at 398 which dropped to 333 in 2018, and continued to go down to 276 in 2019.
The city population office has no data available yet for 2020.
Taburaza believes the COVID-19 pandemic was a factor in the decrease of teenage pregnancy cases in Dumaguete City.
“Children were contained in their houses. Children were not allowed to go out,” Taburaza said.
Early this year, the City Population Office held a ladderized training for young people to enable them to become peer educators who could also help advocate adolescent health among young people in the city.
Taburaza said they are waiting for the community quarantine restrictions to loosen before they can continue with their training programs.
On teenage maternal deaths, the province has not recorded any incidence of deaths caused by teenage pregnancy for 2019 and 2020.
However, 12 cases of teenage pregnancy-related deaths were logged from 2015 to 2018, caused by post-partum complications such as eclampsia and hemorrhage.
Francisco noted that the figures may be small but the IPHO is aiming for zero deaths per year. (RAL/PIA7 Negros Oriental)
