In Colombia, 68.18% of children born are of young mothers with low levels of education

Adolescent motherhood has emerged as one of the major problems in young Colombians, as the relationship with populations with low levels of education and poverty rates has been proven. A study by the Exito Foundation entitled 'Mother: the essentials of the essential' shows, like statistics from the National Administrative Department of Statistics -DANE-, the relationship between early pregnancy and low levels of education.

According to the report, 68.18 per cent of all children born each year are to mothers whose highest level of education is high school; disaggregated data show that only 0.24 per cent have preschool, 11.66 per cent are primary, 21.5 per cent are secondary school, and 34.76 per cent have an academic average.

On the other hand, the report of the Success shows that less than 50% of minors born in Colombia are to very young mothers, maximum 24 years old, and 18% have a girl as their mother, that is, between 10 and 14 years old. In addition, the study notes that the most at-risk children are children of women between the ages of 10 and 19. These figures show serious effects on the upbringing of minors, as it was found that there are six times more likely that a child, the child of a woman with low levels of education or zero access, will suffer from chronic malnutrition, according to the study.

“It all starts in early childhood and the most mature, strengthened and educated mothers will have more resources, at all levels, to guide their children in early childhood, achieve better levels of breastfeeding and provide better foods of high nutritional value that allow them to grow properly and comprehensively: in height, weight , in development and in IQ,” said Diana Pineda, leader of Social Investment at the Exito Foundation, in an interview with the Colombian newspaper.

It is worth remembering that the WHO warns that pregnancies in minors have effects on both mother and child health, making Colombia an area with widespread health problems caused by this scourge. In addition, it ensures that prenatal deaths are higher for children born to mothers who are under 20 years old, as is a higher rate of premature births, malformations in the fetus or cardiac or respiratory complications.

Faced with this problem, Icbf indicated that teenage pregnancies discourage the productivity and economic growth of a society: “Teenage pregnancy also causes multiple social problems, such as: family conflicts, school dropouts, change of life projects, discrimination, servile marriage or early age, income reduction and poverty”.

Unicef, for its part, noted that this increase in teenage and underage pregnancies in recent years could be directly related to the pandemic that the world experienced between the end of 2019 and 2021: “The spread of COVID-19 and some of the measures taken to curb, such as social isolation, exacerbate the risk of violence against children. Unfortunately, most cases of violence in the first years of life occur on the part of an immediate family member or person close to the child.”

KEEP READING