High cases of teen pregnancy worry at 27.6 per cent

Teenage pregnancy is still alarmingly high, with an average of 27.6 per cent in 10 vulnerable counties, Samburu leading.

This was described yesterday as worrying, with statistics showing the number of sexually active unmarried women aged 15-49 years, about 70 per cent, were using contraceptives, and 59 per cent of them were on modern methods.

In the latest Kenya Demographic Health Survey (KDHS) done last year, girls aged between 15 and 19 in Samburu county recorded 50 per cent pregnancy out of a national average of 15 per cent, the highest in the country.

“Teenage pregnancy among girls aged 15- 19 decreases with an increase in education levels,” Kenya National Bureau of Statistics acting Director General MacDonald Obudho said at Kenya International Convention Centre (KICC) where the latest statistics were released. Kenya has the third highest teen pregnancies globally, where one in every five adolescents aged 15-19 are already mothers or pregnant with their first child.

In the survey, it emerged the percentage of women aged 15-19 who have been pregnant increases with age, from three per cent among those aged 15 to 31 per cent among 19-year-olds.

Illiteracy factor

It also indicated that about four in 10 women, aged 15–19, who have no education, have been pregnant, compared with only 5 per cent of women with secondary education.

This is well represented in the fact that teenage women in the lowest wealth quintile are more likely to have been pregnant than women n in the highest wealth quintile.

“The percentage of women who have ever been pregnant decreases from 21 percent among those in the lowest wealth quintile to 8 per cent among those in the highest wealth quintile,” the survey’s key indicators captured in a draft of the main report to be launched in March shows.

Samburu County shocked the country last year with an internal report showing that an average of over 800 teenagers had become pregnant in just three months, between January and March. It was reported then that at least 10 underage girls became pregnant in the county daily between January and March 2022.

Nine other counties came hot on the heels of Samburu, with the highest teenage pregnancy in the country. The counties included West Pokot (36 per cent), Marsabit (29), Narok (28), Meru (24), while Homa Bay and Migori had 23 each.

Targeted approach Kajiado followed with 22 per cent, Siaya (21), and Baringo (20), while Nyeri and Nyandarua both recorded 5 per cent.

Yesterday, various stakeholders including donors called for a concerted and targeted approach to deal with the issue, with others urged county governments to work hard to bring down these numbers.

“We are calling on counties where the problem of teenage pregnancy is prevalent, to get down to work to alleviate this challenge,” Obudho said.

The teenage pregnancy and motherhood rates in Kenya stand at 18 percent, implying that about one in every five teenage girls between the ages of 15-19 years, have either had a live birth or are pregnant with their first child.

However, he noted, the fertility level trends were declining, recording 3.4 per cent in 2022 from 3.9 per cent in 2014 when the last KDHS was done.

“About half (47 per cent) of currently married women aged 15-49 want to have another child soon or later; 17 per cent want to have another child soon, and 30 per cent want to wait at least two years,” the survey indicates.

Further, the survey shows that more than four in 10 currently married women want to limit childbearing. Kenya is among African countries struggling, with the triple threat of new HIV infections, genderbased violence and pregnancy among adolescents.

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