In the United States, a 10-year-old girl was forced to leave her state to have an abortion. Some abortion critics felt that she should have carried her pregnancy to term. But are pregnancy and childbirth really safe for a child?
While the U.S. Supreme Court decided to overturn Roe v. Wade ensuring the right to abortion, the story of a 10-year-old girl made the rounds of the international press. The reason ? Fallen pregnant after a rape, she was forced to leave her state and join Indiana to be able to access an abortion. Some opponents of abortion had then decreed that the young girl should have carried her pregnancy to term.
In the pages of New York Timesmany health professionals have taken the floor to denounce the brutality of such a phenomenon on the health of little girls. “Their bodies aren’t ready for the birth of a child and it can be really traumatic.”said Marie Bass Gomez, a midwife and nurse at Bundung Maternal and Child Health Hospital in The Gambia. Indeed, the pelvis of a child is not wide enough for the passage of a fetus, even a very small one. “They have a long and obstructed labor, the fetus presses on the bladder and the urethra, which sometimes causes pelvic inflammatory disease and rupture of the tissues between the vagina, the bladder and the rectum.continues Dr. Ashok Dyalchand, who has worked for a long time with young pregnant teenagers.
770,000 girls under 15 give birth every year
Pregnancy is undeniably a danger for these young girls, even more when they are under 15 years old. “Complications, morbidity and mortality are much higher in girls under 15 than in those between 16 and 19, although this age group has twice the mortality rate of those in 20 and more”, adds Dr. Dyachland. They are also more at risk of a whole set of pathologies: anemia, infections, postpartum depression…
In 2020, a WHO report reported that complications during pregnancy and childbirth were the leading cause of death for girls aged 15 to 19 worldwide, “low- and middle-income countries accounting for 99% of global maternal deaths of women aged 15-49″. At least 770,000 girls under 15 give birth every year around the world.
More risk of prematurity in newborns
But early pregnancy also increase the risk for newborns. Babies of very young mothers are more often premature and have a low birth weight, says the American daily Dr. Willibald Zeck, coordinator of maternal and neonatal health for the United Nations Population Fund.
“In normal physiology, a child of 10 is not supposed to be pregnant. She’s a child, and a child can’t give birth, she’s not ready”, says Dr. Shershah Syed, a gynecologist in Pakistan. “And the mental torture that she will undergo, this is not measurable.”
Indeed, beyond her health, an early pregnancy can have social consequences for the young mother. “Social consequences for unmarried pregnant adolescents can include stigma, rejection or violence by partners, parents and peers. Girls who become pregnant before the age of 18 are more likely to experience violence within a marriage or partnership”ends the WHO report.
Sources:
- What pregnancy and childbirth do to the bodies of young girls, The New York TimesJuly 18, 2022
- Adolescent pregnancy, World Health Organization
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