The Stork Network is a program that has benefited over 2 million pregnant women, based on the goal of establishing a care network to ensure women's right to reproductive planning and humane care during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum. A new research from the Fernandes Figueira Institute (IFF/Fiocruz), also supported by Fiotec, brings a new line of reasoning to the network: monitoring of teenage pregnancy.

This is the project " Adolescent sexuality: from individual experience to social relations and the particularities of teenage pregnancy as subsidies for the implementation of the Stork Network in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro".

The project takes place in two stages. The first, already completed, was the systematical monitoring of pregnant teens enrolled in IFF who received prenatal care there and those who were assisted in a gynecological appointment, in the years 2012 and 2013. From March 2012 to June 2013, 279 teenagers who had received prenatal care and 266 teenagers who had been assisted in a gynecological appointment were served.

The second stage, which is in progress, is to implement the strategies that lead to the fulfillment of the Stork Network proposals with these teenagers, whose babies were born between March 2012 and December 2013.

At the end of the project, a video will be produced with the care and monitoring of these mothers and babies, to be disclosed at a seminar. The idea is to promote the video in order to increase the activities developed.

The importance of monitoring for teenagers

Adolescence is marked by deep organic and psychosocial changes. These new forms of behavior, driven by further intensification of interpersonal interactions with different social groups, and the media exposure and consumption, are expressed in the practices of adolescent sexuality.

As it is also a stage of knowledge and experiments, often with little responsibility, it is considered a time of increased vulnerability to risks arising from unprotected sex, either AIDS/STD or pregnancy.

The twentieth century was marked by changes in patterns of exercise of sexuality, resulting in an increase in teenage pregnancy, which has been considered a public health problem, not only in Brazil. Although this increase is observed in all social levels, it occurs more in low-income populations and among the poorest teenagers. And both pregnancy and childbirth may result in social, psychological or medical disorders.

Reflection and debate

There is a debate on the prevention of teenage pregnancy. For this it is necessary to know conditions associated with the event, such as income, education, family factors, sexual experience and education, in addition to the specificities of each context. There are also cases where the pregnancy is planned by the teenager. Therefore, the research provides the monitoring, case by case, of the patients and the record of information and indicators.

Also according to the project proposal, one of the ways to contribute to the prevention of the first teenage pregnancy is discussion and awareness of what motherhood means. Thus, one of the goals of the project is to promote reflective/informational groups with teenagers at the outpatient clinics of IFF.