Although it has not been given enough importance, there is a serious health problem in our country. It is about teenage pregnancies that have even increased during the current pandemic. That is why Mexico ranks first worldwide in this area within the nations that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), with a fertility rate of 77 births for every thousand young people aged 15 to 19 year old.
Current national panorama
In this sense, in our country 23 percent of adolescents begin their sexual life between 12 and 19 years of age. According to figures from the National Population Council, it begins at an average age of 15.5 years, and statistics from the National Institute of Perinatology indicate that it occurs at 14.6 years, on average.
In addition, there is a tendency to do so at an earlier age, and that has to do with the social networks that young people access, where there is a significant amount of false information, and the type of education they receive in schools or with their students. close beings, and that it is not necessarily adequate, warned Aline García Cortés, of the School of Medicine (FM).
Among those who started their sexual life, the majority (97 percent) know at least one contraceptive method; however, more than half did not use any in their first sexual intercourse. Thus, approximately 340,000 births occur per year in women under 19 years of age.
On the occasion of World Sexual Health Day, which is commemorated every September 4, the member of the FM’s Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program pointed out that this phenomenon generates problems regarding morbidity and mortality (death rate in a population and in a given time) maternal and fetal, because it is considered high risk.
Health problems that may occur
In adolescent pregnancies, there is a greater chance of developing diseases that can be life-threatening. For example, pre-eclampsia, preterm delivery, gestational diabetes, or eclampsia. Therefore, he said that a strategy should be to reduce them, especially to improve women’s health and reduce maternal mortality.
As of 2010, the World Association for Sexual Health established September 4 as the World Sexual Health Day, in an effort to sensitize and promote sexuality as an essential aspect of the human being and an element of reproductive health that must be satisfactory, healthy and without risks for the population.
García Cortés recalled that according to the WHO sexual health is a state of physical, mental and social well-being in relation to sexuality. It requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasant and safe experiences, free from all coercion, discrimination and violence.
It is made up of different factors: the biological one refers to the anatomical maturity of the body of men and women to be able to have a full sexual life. The cognitive and psychological refer to self-esteem, which is important for human beings to be able to function and develop that part of their life fully; As well as the social one, it is also important because it influences the moment in which a person initiates these practices, how they do it, and in some behaviors or habits typical of each culture.
Aline García explained that the factors that affect the ability to have sex or enjoy them are divided into age groups; that is, they are not the same for an adolescent as for an older adult, or a woman in the transition to menopause. Adolescent women, for example, report problems reaching orgasm, and males to maintain an erection or premature ejaculation.
If there is a premature onset of sexual life, dyspareunia or pain produced when attempting intercourse or other penetrative sexual activities may occur; On the other hand, when the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis is mature, there is adequate estrogen secretion that allows the development and elasticity of the vagina.
Social and psychological aspects also intervene, such as fear of pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and those aspects that cannot be discussed with their close friends or with a doctor, and that can cause anxiety; that limits feeling pleasure.
Regarding sexually transmitted diseases, García Cortés explained that in Mexico the main one is vulvovaginitis with approximately 140 thousand cases reported in 2019; To this condition are added others such as urogenital candidiasis, trichomoniasis, HIV and genital herpes. The WHO highlights that the human papillomavirus is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the world.