Young girls should not get pregnant

Meredith F. Small

Meredith F. Small is Cornell University anthropologist, and author of "Our Babies, Ourselves; How to Make Your Children" and "The Culture of Our Discontent; Beyond the Medical Model of Mental Illness ".

Many women in the United States postpone marriage to develop their careers, but women in many other countries tend to follow traditions and get married since young, sometimes too early.

A recent report from the School of Public Health, Boston University, researcher Anita Raj and colleagues confirmed that half of Indian women aged 20 to 24 have become brides when they are under 18 - legal marriage age in India, over 22% of women get married before the age of 16.

Although early marriage can be accepted in India but not received in many other cultures, research shows that the problem is really the bodies of women at that age. ready for birth.

When menstruation starts, this is a phenomenon that occurs every month, a young girl is said to enter the female stage. But this step is much slower than it really is, it's not really a sign that the woman's body is ready for delivery. In fact, all young women experience a period of 'infertility' , during which time they have menstruation but do not have ovulation. Conception is a dangerous thing because reproductive organs have not been developed completely despite the monthly period.

Young girls should not get pregnant (Photo: vietbao.vn)

Especially the period when women seem to have matured but have not yet happened in primate relatives of humans, monkeys and gibbons. Young female monkeys may have a red swollen buttock - a sign of ovulation in adult females and the ability to conceive - but it is just like training in young children.

Maybe they're struggling with hormonal desires, but behavioral studies show they don't know what to do with such desires. The baboon when first encountering this phenomenon will approach the male, displaying the red swollen butt as if to say it is ready, but then running while screaming.

Young underprivileged monkeys can also become pregnant, but when worn, they become inexperienced mothers. Their bodies take a long time to reproduce again.

Although pairing and pregnancy are key to successful reproduction and evolution, no one thinks it is the perfect system in any species. In fact it is a process, accelerating that process only brings trouble.

The girls in Raj's study got married early, and at the same time experienced more unwanted pregnancies, they dropped their fetus more, and 13% chose sterilization. No wonder. Being married when not 18 years old in India means not using contraceptives and at least 3 babies are born 2 years apart - a fertility schedule exhausting any woman Whichever is above or below 18 years old.

Many pregnancies do not bring good results. Children whose adolescent mothers are more at risk of premature births as well as less birth weight, as well as serious fertility problems. These babies also have a higher risk of death than babies of older mothers.

In any country, women are not ready for the reproductive process until they are mature. This means that after the age of 18 or even older when the body has gone through several years of the menstrual cycle, a girl becomes a perfect woman.

In terms of culture, we can accelerate the process of reproduction but biology has already set its limits.