Sedalia doctor lays out consequences of teen pregnancy

Teen pregnancy carries not just medical risks, but personal ones as well.

Smith-Cotton High School students heard about those chances and consequences of teen pregnancy Thursday from Sedalia family practitioner Dr. Julie Cahill during a special assembly.

Cahill warned students that sex and pregnancy have health, financial and social consequences, and cited statistics to drive her point home.

“The daughters of teen mothers are more likely to be teen mothers themselves, 22 percent more likely,” she said. “The sons of teen mothers are 13 percent more likely to go to prison.”

Cahill said 25 percent of teen mothers finish high school.

“There’s no more fun, once you have a baby,” she said.

About 35 percent of teen fathers stay through the pregnancy, and that number drops off after the baby is born, she said.

Abstinence is the only sure way to avoid pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.

“Babies are a blessing, when you’re ready for them,” she said.

While teen pregnancy decreased nationally last year, she said, it increased in Missouri, which has a high teen birth rate compared to the national average.

Cahill said after the assembly she sees pregnant pediatric patients in her practice.

Student Council member Kami Wolf, who helped organize the awareness assembly, said Cahill was invited because female students could relate to her.

“Everybody was listening, and she gave people a lot of good facts that people didn’t know,” Wolf said. “I think it really opened people’s eyes.”

Student Council member Jenny Swafford, who also helped organize Cahill’s presentation, said the group chose teen pregnancy for the annual awareness assembly because there have been pregnant students within the district.

“There were a couple of middle school students that were pregnant and we’ve had a lot come through Smith-Cotton as well,” she said.

Senior Cassie Bias, 18, said she knows of several.

“I know a lot of my friends that made bad choices, and now they’re really stuck,” she said.

Sophomore Nakiya Allen, 16, said she thought the assembly was helpful.

“I thought it was actually kind of a good point. If people are going to go around and have sex at a young age, they should use protection” because an unintended pregnancy can affect students’ futures, she said.

Freshman Matt Kowalski, 15, said the assembly “was useful ... You make a mistake like that, you can’t take it back,” he said.