What problems arise with the family when there is an unplanned pregnancy? We don’t see the problem of teenage pregnancy as something we need to fix with teenagers. We need to address it from early childhood. We provide sexual education as a normal topic that can be discussed openly.
Mae Pan Subdistrict Municipality, Long District, Phrae Province, is notable for its efforts in driving the prevention of teenage pregnancy. The highlight is the network of partners in the area that emphasizes the importance of preventing teenage pregnancy. Currently, the statistics have decreased, but previously there was an increase in unplanned pregnancies, possibly because teenagers today have easier access to various media.
Regarding the prevention of teenage pregnancy, carrying condoms is now considered normal, whether for women or men. We need to provide this knowledge. If we prepare children from a young age, they will understand how to prevent and address issues, like how we teach children in the area to know what the terms for male and female genitalia are, how reproductive health develops, and what happens when they reach adolescence. This is important for them to understand.
When I first started working around 2015, I began driving the issue of unplanned pregnancies. There was resistance, even at the early childhood center level. Parents asked why it needed to be taught. Here, we had personnel from the Ministry of Public Health come to help, who had direct knowledge and various media tools to show the children what it’s like. There was resistance, for example, when we drove this in primary school groups, as the older generation viewed it as something that shouldn’t be discussed. But today, we do this, and parents smile, like it, and want their children to know and be able to prevent it.
Source: Interview with Mr. Nisit Songsri, Deputy Mayor of Mae Pan Subdistrict Municipality, Acting Mayor of Mae Pan Subdistrict, Long District, Phrae Province, at the Knowledge Exchange Conference on the Prevention and Solution of Teenage Pregnancy Problems, July 11-12, 2019, at Ambassador Hotel, Sukhumvit, Bangkok.