Teenage pregnancy is bad for mothers and bad for babies. It compromises a girl’s health and education and places responsibility for the infant’s care in the hands of someone who is still a child herself.
While the latest public sector data indicates that adolescent pregnancy has been falling for the past three years, the numbers are still alarmingly high given the risks they represent.
More than 136,772 births and abortions were recorded among girls aged between 10 and 19 in 2025, of which 3,242 were among children aged between 10 and 14, according to the latest edition of the South African Medical Journal.
These adolescents and their babies are at much higher risk of serious health complications than older mothers, partly because a young girl’s body is not equipped for pregnancy. Many teen mothers face shockingly prejudicial attitudes from healthcare workers, are deeply traumatised by childbirth, and are at high risk of post-natal depression.
Add to that the burden of caring for an infant, and it is hardly surprising that teenage mothers are much more likely to drop out of school than children who do not become parents, diminishing their opportunities for a better life.
Against this backdrop, any moves schools take to support pregnant learners should be welcomed. The basic education department has led vital work to ensure pregnant adolescents are not expelled from schools as they were in the past.
The draft regulations it published last month contain important proposals to help girls get the health services they and their babies require, along with new requirements compelling schools to report on the retention of learners during pregnancy and whether they return to school after birth.
Crucially, the regulations make it mandatory for schools to report all pregnancies if the pupil is under the age of 16 to the police and to the department of social development, since these are pregnancies arising from statutory rape. There are also mandatory reporting requirements if the father is a teacher or any other school employee.
These are all sound measures aimed at protecting vulnerable adolescents. But they treat the symptoms, not the cause. Teenage pregnancy is a deeply complex social issue that will not be resolved by providing better support when motherhood is already looming.
Many teen mothers face shockingly prejudicial attitudes from healthcare workers, are deeply traumatised by childbirth, and are at high risk of post-natal depression.
While some teenage girls certainly do choose to fall pregnant, the majority of these cases are unplanned and are the result of systemic failures that are far from easy to fix.
The list is long — inadequate sexual and reproductive health education, limited access to contraception, widespread gender-based violence and deeply entrenched poverty that constrains girls’ choices and makes them vulnerable to offers of transactional sex.
Tackling these issues is going to require communities to say a firm no to every single case of underage sex and for the criminal justice system to be seen to be bringing the perpetrators of statutory rape to book.
It also requires a fresh conversation about the provision of family planning services through the school health programme, which already provides girls with vaccines to protect them against cervical cancer.
Managing the educational consequences of teenage pregnancy is important, but it does not address the root causes.
Unless there is political will to drive an equally determined campaign to protect girls, the cycle will continue and rob yet more children of their future.
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