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Showing results for tags 'Sierra Leone'.
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Content ArticleSierra Leone has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world. The risks are even greater for teenage girls who become pregnant, with up to one in ten dying in childbirth. In this blog, Lucy November, co-founder of 2YoungLives, a mentoring project for pregnant teenagers, describes the risks faced by teenage girls in Sierra Leone and the barriers they face to accessing maternity care. She talks about how 2YoungLives is making pregnancy and birth safer for this vulnerable group through mentoring, building community and equipping young mothers to support themselves and their babies.
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Content ArticleIn Sierra Leone, 34% of pregnancies and 40% of maternal deaths are amongst teenagers and risks are known to be higher for younger teenagers. This qualitative study in Reproductive Health aimed to explore the causes of this high incidence of maternal death for younger teenagers, and to identify possible interventions to improve outcomes. Through focus groups and semi-structured interviews, the authors identified transactional sex - including sex for school fees, sex with teachers for grades and sex for food and clothes - as the main cause of high pregnancy rates for this group. They also identified gendered social norms for sexual behaviour, lack of access to contraception and the fact that abortion is illegal in Sierra Leone as factors meaning that teenage girls are more likely to become pregnant. Key factors affecting vulnerability to death once pregnant included abandonment, delayed care seeking and being cared for by a non-parental adult. Their findings challenge the idea that adolescent girls have the necessary agency to make straightforward choices about their sexual behaviour and contraceptives. They identify a mentoring scheme for the most vulnerable pregnant girls and a locally managed blood donation register as potential interventions to deal with the high rate of maternal death amongst teenage girls.
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- Children and Young People
- Maternity
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