Leeds Teenage Pregnancy and Parenthood Partnership and Strategy
Why teenage pregnancy matters
The reasons for tackling teenage pregnancy and supporting teenage mothers and young fathers are well documented and include health and wider inequalities issues. Babies born to teenage mothers have a 60 per cent higher infant mortality rate and a 63 per cent increased risk of being born into poverty compared to babies born to older mothers. Children born to teenage mothers do less well at school and disengage early from learning and sometimes well before they have finished compulsory education. Daughters of teenage mothers are twice as likely as daughters born to older mothers to become teenage mothers themselves. Similar disadvantages affect young fathers.
Measures to reduce teenage conceptions help to reduce the health inequalities and social exclusion impact of teenage parenthood. Efforts to improve outcomes for teenage mothers and young fathers will, in turn, reduce the chances that children born to teenage mothers and young fathers become teenage parents themselves, because they are less likely to experience some of the factors associated with teenage pregnancy. Supporting teenage mothers to access and use contraception effectively after the birth of their first child will also help prevent subsequent unplanned pregnancies.
In addition to helping to achieve teenage conception targets, programmes for teenage pregnancy and supporting teenage mothers and young fathers are part of a long-term effort to narrow social and health inequalities and tackle child poverty. Tackling the risk factors for teenage pregnancy can have an impact on a range of other local priorities. Diagram 1 shows some of the key priorities from the NIS, vital signs (VS) and world class commissioning (WCC) likely to be impacted on by effective teenage pregnancy programmes.
Leeds has a Teenage Pregnancy and Parenthood Strategy and Partnership work plan which covers the whole city, but there are a number of 'hotspot' wards in the city, six of which have been prioritised for targeted work, of these six, three are in Inner South and three Inner East. The aim of the prioritising these areas is to develop targeted local strategies and action plans in order to establish a sustained downward trend in teenage conceptions in these localities.
Downloads:
Current Teenage Pregnancy Newsletter
Update November 2009- Reducing teenage conceptions in localities
Update October 2009 - Teenage pregnancy and parenthood newsletter
Update September 2009 - Increased sexual health service provision in the six priority wards Key developments
Update September 2009 - Locality Commissioning Update
Update for July 2009– Inner East and Inner South Hotspot Wards
You can find the NHS Sexual health training calendar on the following link:
NHS Sexual Health training Calendar