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NEW FIGURES FROM the CSO have shown a sharp decline in the number of teenagers having children.
The HSE has welcomed what is a 60% decline over the past 13 years, saying they believe this is down to a successful sex education programme.
The most recent figures, released yesterday, also showed a year-on-year drop from 1,381 in 2013 to 1,253 in 2014.
How have things changed through the years?
Back in 2001, the figure for the total number of teenage births stood at 3,087 – with a teenage birth rate of 20.0 per 1,000 females aged between 15 and 19.
Both the total number of births and teenage births per capita have fallen consistently since then – with last year being their lowest ebb. The 1,253 births by teenagers last year was accounted for only 9.3 out of every 1,000 sample of females aged by 15 and 19.
In the Irish Contraception and Crisis Pregnancy Study conducted in 2010, it was found that 86% of 18- to 25-year-olds had received sex education as teenagers. This was compared with 76% of 26- to 35-year-olds.
Those who received sex education were one-and-a-half times more likely to use contraception the first time they had sex than those who did not.
In the same study it was also found that the median age for people losing their virginity was at 17 years for males, and slightly older for females, at between 17 and 18 years of age.
Is this down to sex education?
The decrease in births to teenagers has coincided with the establishment of the HSE Crisis Pregnancy Programme in 2001.
It operates through schools and organisations and has a range of materials, many of which are available through its website.
Speaking about the new figures, head of the programme, Helen Deely, said, “There has been a significant shift in our society over the last 14 years; increasing numbers of young people are receiving good quality Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) in schools and in youth groups.”
Speaking about the different approach the programme takes, Deely said:
“We are currently engaged in a piece of research with parents of four- to nine-year-olds on talking to their children about the body, sexuality and relationships, we hope that this will inform us as to how best support parents in talking to their children at an early age.
We have previously found that it can be difficult for parents to begin these conversations in adolescence but parents who created an environment where children feel comfortable asking questions when they were younger found it easier to discuss the subject as the child got older.
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If the health officials have their way and make social distancing a condition for businesses to reopen our economy will never recover. This is absolute nonsense. The so called cure will be far far worse than the disease.
Face masks, physical distancing and things can start resuming. I can’t understand why people are willing to believe that we are all stupid paddies who need to be locked up otherwise we wouldn’t be able to control ourselves. The vast majority of people are highly responsible. However, when you see the guards allowing the gemmaroids to travel and congregate you would wonder. We know what to do to avoid infection. Other countries are doing it successfully and are opening up at a quicker rate than us. What terrifies me is the aftermath . We’ve had practically no healthcare apart from covid in the country for nearly 2 months. Mental health issues have been pushed under the carpet. People experiencing violence and abuse from partners, parents, children have had nowhere to escape to. The economic fall out will be horrendous. Many businesses will never reopen. Unemployment will rocket. Amazon will keep trading with their warehouses full of staff working round the clock in dubious conditions, yet the local hairdresser with only one chair can’t open up until August. But, at least from the 18th we can get to the garden centre for some lettuce seeds to sustain us over the summer months. the worst is yet to come
@Anne Marie Devlin: precisely . The lockdown was necessary for two months and then phased out but the exit plan is far too long and the economic recession & health consequences will be disastrous . Already FG ligned up with Holland and co against the mutualisation of EU debt and is defending loans instead – 2011 revisited.
Mandatory Masks in public closed places, quick laboratory test results & contact tracing, isolating positive cases & their contacts & PPE for essential workers would allow a quicker exit plan. It’s inconceivable that bus passengers are still wearing no masks as I saw yesterday as I had to go into office & the GoD irresponsible were out in quays again bundled together watched by the poor guards with no PPE ( look at outbreak in mountjoy station today ) .
Testing alone is useless.
We have known for months that we need effective and quick contact tracing leading to identification and self isolation of infected people.
Where are the contact tracing metrics?
WTF is wrong that journalists and politicians keep forgetting that we need to do more than hide behind the couch to deal with this killer.
Keep the vulnerable away from sources of infection
Quickly track down infected people
Get the healthy ones to self isolate
Bring the sick ones to hospital
Live our lives
Here read this: https://www.fda.gov/media/136472/download
And understand it, and in particular pay attention to page 3: “Negative results do not preclude SARS-CoV-2 infection and should not be used as the sole basis for patient management decisions. Negative results must be combined with clinical observations, patient history, and epidemiological information.” Similar conditions of course apply to positive results. It is a hugely complicated test to be used on symptomatic patients. So bear this information in mind next time you see an uninformed journalist or a politician suggesting that this test can be used to certify people as safe to travel or to test the entire population etc. I won’t waste time or energy on getting into further discussions about why I share this or about who is right. Just read the info I give you here, and make up your own minds.
They’ve upgraded from vista to XP
“THE BROADENING OF testing criteria for Covid-19 has raised questions about whether Ireland could once again face a major backlog.”
Where in the article does it mention these ‘raised questions’ – the GPs said they’re confident with the testing process now, the article doesn’t mention anyone else with ‘questions’?
have your say