Teen pregnancies drop in American Samoa

Transcript

Statisticians at American Samoa's LBJ Hospital say there has not been a 14 year old mother giving birth at LBJ Hospital for the first time in five years.

Our correspondent, Monica Miller told Jenny Meyer the number of babies born at Pago Pago's LBJ Hospital has been dropping steadily for the last five years and so too has the teen pregnancy rate.

MONICA MILLER:  According to the Family Planning Division of the LBJ hospital, there's been a steady decline in the number of teenage pregnancies and this corresponds with the overall birth-rate also dropping in the last five years.  Some of the figures that have been released according to the manager Marilyn Anesi, in 2013 there were 138 babies born to teenage mothers but last year that number dropped to 114.  One of the things she was particularly pleased about was that for the first time in five years there is no baby born to a 14 year old mother.  The previous years there has been a steady increase to the number of babies born girls 14 years of age.  Last year and the last four years prior to 2014,15 was the youngest age.

JENNY MEYER:  What are the hospital authorities and the statisticians putting this change down to?

MM:  She thinks that their message is getting out.  I know that they have a very strong teen monitoring programme where the teenagers in the high schools and the American Samoa Community College talk to girls who are in serious relationships and trying to spread the message that they should not have sex at that young age and that they should wait for marriage.  They've also opened up their clinics sometimes late on Tuesdays and Thursdays and even opening up on Saturday morning.  According to Mrs Anesi they've seen an increase in the number of people that are coming to the clinic now to make use of family planning services.  The other belief is that whereas before people believed that using family planning would interfere with the will of God for parents to have children but I think that with a new generation coming up now they don't hold that belief as much as their parents did.

JM:  So it seems this is a good news public health story.  What's the reaction been from different sectors: education, health and perhaps even the teenagers themselves as the news hit the public.

MM:  Unfortunately the report that we carried, this is the first time the information has come out and so there hasn't been any reaction so far.  On the other side of the coin though, I know that the government people have been looking at why our census has been going down and that would be interesting to see what the government people would make of the fact that the birth-rate has dropped.  If you compare the number that were born last year to 2010.  It's actually 200 less babies.    

Monica Miller says the 2010 census recorded a population for American Samoa of 55,000 people, which was lower than the commonly assumed estimate of 60,000, and she says there is a mid-census count planned soon for the territory.