Teen Pregnancies Blamed For More Disabled Babies

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Teen Pregnancies Blamed For More Disabled Babies
By THE NATION
2011-03-09

Thailand's huge rate of teen pregnancies is one of the main reasons for the growing number of children with disabilities - whose poor health also means their average life span is less than 20 years, a senior official said yesterday.

Social Development and Welfare Department (SDWD) chief Prapon Phanthu said the approximate rate of premature pregnancies in Asia was 56 cases for every 1,000 people, but Thailand topped this figure with about 70 girls under the age of 20 getting pregnant out of every 1,000 people. While campaigning to prevent premature pregnancy and urging pregnant teenagers to seek pre-natal care for the sake of their babies' health, the department also plans to link with local administrative bodies to set up 40 centres to look after children with disabilities. It would set up 20 of these centres this year and another 16 next year, he said.

This would help families and communities to take care of such children and lower the number of children with disabilities sent to state-run homes, which have suffered staff and budget shortages.

An informed source said one reason for staff shortages was while civil-servant positions were replaced when people retired, permanent positions for people to care of children were cut when people retired. The challenging nature of the job, which demands great patience, also meant some carers were opting to look for work elsewhere.


With budget shortages now at a critical level at state-run homes and schools for children with disabilities, staff have been overwhelmed trying to look after children in their care.

Social Development and Human Security Minister Issara Somchai said yesterday he had ordered the welfare department to calculate funds and manpower needed so he could discuss with related agencies how to get more positions to replace people who retire, and get more cash to hire more caregivers.

The information would be included in the budget plan for the 2013 fiscal year put to the Budget Bureau, he said. Issara said the ministry would join forces with related organisations to campaign for teenagers to abstain from sex and try to stop premature pregnancies. Moves to do this would be tried in Kamphaeng Phet first.