Fatimah (centre) signs the standard operating procedures (SOPs) for Pregnant Teenagers Cases Management Guide. Also seen are OSTPC committee members and members of relevant agencies and departments.
KUCHING: The formation of One Stop Teenage Pregnancy Committee (OSTPC) has borne fruit in terms of reduction in the number of teenage pregnancies from 2,481 in 2016 to 1,135 in the first six months of this year.
OSTPC is one of programmes of the Health Department and Ministry of Welfare, Community Well Being, Women, Family and Childhood Development, said its minister Datuk Fatimah Abdullah.
She said to ensure that teenage pregnancy cases were managed more effectively, a Standard Operating Procedures for Pregnant Teenagers Cases Management Guide between agencies, especially at the department level, has been documented as a result of two series of workshop and seminar organised by OSTPC.
“We are launching this guide so that the figure will continue to decrease,” she told a press conference after a OSTPC meeting yesterday.
To strengthen teenagers’ discipline, she said, the ministry would continue to hold various awareness, advocacy and prevention programmes with OSTPC members, public and private agencies and non-government organisations to further reduce the number of teenage pregnancies.
Currently, Sarawak still records the highest number of teenage pregnancy in Malaysia, between 6.4 and 9.9 per cent of registered pregnancies, compared to 2.4-4.1 per cent nationwide.
“We have set a key performance index to reduce by 10 per cent teenage pregnancy from previous year’s figure.”
Fatimah said although the number of these teenagers getting married increased to 54.1 per cent last year, most of the marriages did not last.
The ministry, she added, was also going to do an investigative study on why teenage pregnancies happen.
The study will be done by Unimas in September, and Kapit was chosen.
She said Kapit was chosen because it has the highest number of teenage pregnancies, but now the figure has reduced following efforts put into it.
The Health Department is also doing a profiling starting this month on pregnant teenagers to get accurate profile in a systematic way on their background, education level, age, family background and others.
“We need to understand the situation based on evidence.
“We are concerned about teenage pregnancies because the girls would stop schooling and this would affect the future and welfare of both mother and child.
“If they get pregnant at such a tender age, they are not biologically, physically, mentally and financially ready.”