Exploring lived experiences of teenage pregnancy and parenting among school dropouts in Tanganyika district in Katavi

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background In Tanzania Over 70,000 teenage girls were expelled from school due to pregnancy between 2003 and 2015, with the situation being worse in Katavi Region. There is a paucity of studies on the experiences of pregnancy and parenting among teenage mothers who dropped outs from school due to pregnancy. It is this gap that this study intended to fill. Objective To explore the lived experiences of teenage pregnancy and parenting among teen mothers in Tanganyika district Katavi region. Methodology A qualitative case study design was conducted involving 18 in-depth interviews with teen mothers dropped out of schools between 2017-2019. Purposive sampling procedure was used to recruit participants for this study. Audio-recorded interviews in Swahili was done. The recorded interviews were transcribed, translated to English and qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Results The results demonstrate that reasons for pregnancies among students included poverty/financial instability-related matters such as: inability to afford safe residence, insufficient food, and limited ability to afford essential requirements. Other explored reasons were related the student’s personal attributes, namely: lack of life skills and lust for sexual intercourse. The challenges experienced include: violence, pressure to abort and lack of social support from parents and boyfriend. Coping strategies included engaging in small scale businesses in order to improve their socioeconomic situation. Nevertheless, some teen mother employed maladaptive ways like attempting abortion.

Conclusion and recommendation This study has revealed that poverty and lack of life skills are the main reasons for occurrence of pregnancy among students. Violence, pressure to abort and lack of social support from parents and boyfriend this were the challenges which can be controlled by counseling parents who’s their teenagers has been dropped out from school due to pregnancy. This teen mother can be assisted in order to help them to avoid maladaptive ways like intended abortion when they are trying to cope with situation. Efforts to address the problem of pregnancies among students must target reasons, challenges and coping mechanisms comprehensively.