Teenage pregnancy on the rise in Bole

The number of Teenage Pregnancy in Bole Township is on the rise according to reports reaching Bole based Nkilgi FM.

At the Bole District Hospital alone, eight (8) teenagers between the ages of fifteen to seventeen are on admission the past two days awaiting delivery.

Meanwhile, mothers of these teenagers are stressed up and say those responsible for the pregnancies of the daughters are mostly school mates and in some instances jobless men in the society who after making their daughters pregnant abandons them. A distraught mother pleaded with Bole based Nkilgi FM to use its airwaves to talk against teenage pregnancy and its effects on teenage mothers as well as parents of teenage mothers.

Nkilgi FM has been able to obtained photos of some of the 8 teenage girls presently waiting for delivery at the Bole Hospital. One of the girls who is 14 years old has been abandoned by her family at the maternity ward and nurses have to buy her food, pad and other items for her while waiting for her delivery.

When Bole based Nkilgi FM reached out to the Bole District Director of the Ghana Health Service over the issue he said he can give statistics for the whole District but not Bole as a single community. He added; “I would not say there is an increase in teenage pregnancy in Bole town I would rather say it is high. In 2019, there were 197 teenage pregnancies representing 13.0% of a total of 1,524 pregnant women in Bole town and in 2020, 208 teenage pregnancies were recorded out of 1,586 total pregnancies representing 13.1%

Reasons for Teenage pregnancy are mostly poverty, irresponsible parenting, peer pressure and school truancy.