Mexico is experiencing a crisis of teenage pregnancies; pandemic doubled the cases

October 21, 2021

1 minute read

Worldwide, problems during pregnancy are the second leading cause of death among minors.

Photo: Ian Waldie / Getty Images

Although Mexico was known to be the dishonorable first place for adolescent pregnancy among the nations that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Newly disclosed figures could be outrageous.

According to the 2020 Report of the National Strategy for the Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy (ENAPEA), in that same year there were 373, 661 births to mothers under 18 years of age, 8, 876 of which are to girls between 12 and 14 years old, or rather, 2.5 times more cases than those registered in the last years.

According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, in the In the last almost nine years, more than 1,355,000 thousand births were registered in Mexico where mothers were minors. The registry establishes that in 2013 there were 152, 929 cases in total, by 2015 there were 189, 858. Since then it has been reduced to 146, 268 cases registered in 2019, prior to the pandemic.

According to statistics, of mothers under 17 years of age in Mexico, most of them occurred among 14-year-old adolescents (82.7 percent), followed by 13-year-old girls, where 14.2 percent of births occurred. At age 12, 2.4 percent of births occurred and at 11 years, 0.7 percent of births.

It is worth mentioning that worldwide, problems during pregnancy and childbirth are the second leading cause of death in women between 15 and 19 years old, and that babies of adolescent mothers have a higher risk of death than those of women older than that age.

In addition, beyond the context of health, adolescent pregnancy can generate negative consequences on an economic and social level not only for the women themselves, but also for the families of which they are part.