TEEN-AGE PREGNANCY They did it for love?

Anne, now 17, was only 14 years old when she started dating her then 15-year-old boyfriend. The date, a wholesome fun for the teen-aged couple, started with partying sprees or movies on weekends.

Barely a month later, the young couple were already inseparable and Anne began wearing love bites on her neck She called it the normal way of expressing deep feelings for the loved one.

For today’s generation, the need to develop love and trust means being together as often as possible. This togetherness eventually generates desire which makes teens exceptionally vulnerable because they tend to bring love and desire together although these elements are actually opposed to each other.

Teens believe that the acceptability of sexual activities like petting, necking and copulation is tied to the level of mutual understanding that has been achieved.

So at 17, Anne dropped out of school, works in a private company and rears a two-year old -– alone. Her boyfriend is now living with her younger sister who also bore his child .

If it is any consolation, Anne and her younger sister share basically the same situation with millions of girls their age all over the world.

In the United States alone, approximately one million teens become pregnant each year. The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative reports 115 gestations per 1,000 females in this age group.

In the Northern Marianas, more than 100 female teens aged 15-19 give birth every year. The Commonwealth Health Center recorded 134 births to female teens in this age bracket, and four among female teens 15 years old and below in 1996.

This may also be the reason why the highest proportion of births in a year in the CNMI are firstborn children, though the highest proportion of births were for mothers in age group 25-29. Still, most mothers in the Northern Marianas are in ages 15-39.

It is no longer surprising because all indications have been pointing toward that direction. Studies show that 66.4 percent of all 12th grade high school students report having had sexual intercourse, and approximately 23 percent of all 14-year-olds and 30 percent of all 15-year-olds have had sexual contact.

In the U.S., which has the highest teen pregnancy among developed countries, about one in five women gives birth before age 20.

And although more teens engage in premarital sex, they do not do it just for the sake of having sex. A recent study funded by the World Health Organization’s Global Program on AIDS says “love” remains the reason teens take sexual risks such as unwanted pregnancies that often lead to early marriages.

In addition, pregnancy and childbirth are particularly hazardous for girls under age 16, regardless of marital status. Anemia, high blood pressure, obstructed labor, toxemia and hemorrhage are all more common among young teens than among most women aged 20 to 34.

It says premarital pregnancy is seen as the main risk from sex. But this perceived risk lessens as the couple, especially the female, sees their relationship as having developed to the point where love is accompanied by commitment and the possibilities of marriage.

What many teens are not very much aware of is that unwanted pregnancy is not the only risk they take whenever they engage in premarital sex. An estimated one in 20 teenagers acquires a sexually-transmitted disease each year.

A report called Youth at Risk: Meeting the Sexual Needs of Adolescents says most young people will become sexually active before reaching 20 and they are far less likely than adults to use contraceptives, including condoms.

In emotion-driven premarital sex, which most of today’s generation are in, love and condoms or pills do not go together. Condoms are still associated with illicit sex such as those with prostitutes.

Because of this association, many men do not use condoms with their girlfriend or even with their casual partners they consider as decent and “clean.”

The Population Action International is calling for a much greater emphasis on the use of condoms, which are well-suited to patterns of adolescent sexual activity and provide a high degree of protection against sexually-transmitted diseases.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus [HIV], which causes AIDS, poses a special threat to young people , especially girls, and an estimated two-thirds of those who acquire AIDS are infected by age 25.

The increase in the number of younger sexually active female teens creates a larger group of teens at risk for STDs. In fact, the gonorrhea rate among 10 to 14-year-old females jumped seven percent between 1993 and 1994. And about three million teens contract STD.

The United Nations Population Fund reports that it is because of these risks that young people the world over say they need accurate information on sex, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, want access to family planning, and want to marry later in life.

Youth programs that encourage the delay of sexual activity while also providing information about safer sex and contraception appear to be more effective than those which promote abstinence especially when introduced before sexual activity has begun.

Many believe that young people need to learn how to deal with their sexual feelings and think about their values, about how they make decisions, and about contraception, AIDS, and responsible parenthood.