Samuel Atuahene Antwi, a nutritionist at the Tema metropolitan health directorate, has called for an end to stigmatisation against teenage mothers.
He urged the public to support teenage mothers to care for their children and understand their unique challenges.
Antwi said inadequate parental care is one of the major problems in child healthcare, especially among teenage mothers.
He explained that teenage mothers are usually stigmatised, neglected and unsupported. This leaves them to care for their children all by themselves.
The nutritionist gave the advice during a health promotion dialogue dubbed, “Your Health! Our Collective Responsibility,” a Ghana News Agency Tema regional office initiative aimed at promoting health-related communication and providing a platform for health information dissemination in order to influence personal health choices through improved health literacy.
He said, “Sometimes, the pressure they receive from their peers and community discourages them from attending to their babies.”
Antwi said that some health facilities, such as the Tema General Hospital, have designated days for teenage mothers to access the maternity center.
He said, “We have adolescents in antenatal care, so, if all pregnant women are supposed to come on Monday, the adolescent mother would come on a different day just so it would be only her peers.”
He added that, sometimes, the adolescent health coordinators help them disguise themselves to prevent them from being stigmatized or criticized by society.
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