Health
Thai Health Ministry Aims to Reduce Teen Pregnancies
Every day in Thailand 355 women aged under 20 years old become mothers. About 10 of these girls are under 15
CHIANG RAI – Deputy Public Health Minister Somsak Chunharas say’s the Public Health Ministry aims to reduce the incidence of teen births to under 50 per 1,000 girls aged 15-19 by 2017 from 53.8 per 1,000 in 2012.
The goal was announced yesterday at the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s meeting, which runs until tomorrow with attendees from 160 countries.
Deputy Public Health Minister Somsak Chunharas said the government gave importance to the reproductive health of the 17 million Thai women aged 15-49, so it worked closely with the Planned Parenthood Association of Thailand.
The main problem now was teenage pregnancy, he said.
The ministry’s Policy and Strategy Bureau reported that 129,451 girls aged 15-19 had given birth in 2012.
The strategy to achieve the 2017 goal includes encouraging schools to promote sex education among youngsters to prevent premature sex and educate them about safe sex, expanding teenage clinics from 429 public hospitals currently to all hospitals under the ministry’s supervision and building awareness of this social problem among local administrative bodies and communities.
