Eda is 17 years old, and is the sixth-born in her family. Eda’s father and brother died many years ago. Eda married and lives with her husband.
Eda became pregnant and attended the antenatal clinic at Maternity Africa’s Kivulini Maternity Centre. When she experienced pain she told her husband, and was taken to the Centre to give birth.
Maternity Africa’s doctor examined Eda and found that she was not able to give birth normally. Eda safely underwent surgery (available on a 24-hour basis at the Centre) and now has a baby boy. She is very happy enjoying the good service and benefiting from the medication all provided free of charge by Maternity Africa.
In 2019, 13% of deliveries at Kivulini Maternity Centre were to teenagers, many of them unmarried.
UNFPA states,
“When a girl becomes pregnant, her life can change radically. Her education ends and her job prospects diminish. She becomes more vulnerable to poverty and exclusion and her health often suffers. Teenage pregnancy, therefore, results in a cohort of young girls with little education and limited economic opportunities who cannot contribute to the development of the country. It harms not only individual girls and women, but also their families, communities and countries.
“The adolescent birth/fertility rate is the number of births per 1,000 girls aged 15-19. Tanzania has the 17th highest adolescent fertility rate in Africa. The adolescent fertility rate has increased from 116 to 132 between the 2010 and 2015/16 Demographic Health Surveys (TDHS). Teenage pregnancy has also increased by 4 per cent in Tanzania since 2010; by 2016 one in four adolescents aged 15-19 had begun childbearing”
Source: (https://tanzania.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/factsheet_teenage%20pregnancy_UNFPA_14oct.pdf)
Maternity Africa’s teenage pregnancy programme aims to give teenage mothers positive starts in looking after their child through training, family planning counselling and services, and other practical support.
If you would like to help Maternity Africa to make childbirth safe for people like Eda, please follow the link below. Thank you.