The Public Health Ministry’s Food Policy Division on Tuesday commenced its first inaugural education session with pregnant teenagers in Georgetown.
The four-day event is being held at the Sophia Exhibition Centre, Sophia, Greater Georgetown, under the theme, ‘Help Me So I Can Help You – An Exploration of Opportunities Available to You’.
The sessions will focus on safe motherhood, healthy diet and meal planning, anaemia, early childhood development, and breastfeeding, along with empowering teens to return to school or to further develop themselves after they would have given birth.
According to Dr Trevor Freeman, a physician attached to the Adolescent Health Care Unit, it is a known fact that babies born to teenagers are more likely to have lower birth weights, increased risk of infant mortality and an increased risk of some congenital anomalies.
Teenger mothers at the Sophia Exhibition Site for the educational session on Tuesday
As such, Freeman explained that it is important that both mother and child are given the best nutrition during pregnancy.
“Nutritional needs are high in adolescence as the body grows and develops… when a teenager becomes pregnant, she needs all the help and support she can get,” the doctor stated.
He further noted that the four-day programme is aimed at alleviating teenage pregnancy and enabling them to take control of those factors that inhibit social and health development so that they can achieve their full potential from adolescence to adulthood.
The programme also seeks to create model centres of excellence to carry out health promotion interventions for teenage mothers and their children.
Nevertheless, awareness activities regarding iron-deficiency anaemia are ongoing at the Ministry’s Food Policy Division.
Only recently, a new policy was put in place to ensure teenage mothers have the opportunity to go back to school while receiving support at home and from their respective communities.
The policy manual was as a result of collaboration between the Education Ministry and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). It, however, had the input of other important stakeholders such as the Public Security Ministry, Social Protection Ministry and faith-based organisations among others.
