What Does It mean For a Pregnant Girl to Return to School Post-Lockdown in Uganda?
It was recommended recently by Uganda’s Ministry of Education that a pregnant girl can only study until she is 3 months due, thereafter she must return home and resume school only after giving birth. However, while having chats about this with mothers both young and old, they say the hardest time for a pregnant girl or woman is the first 3 months of the pregnancy.
A 2021 report from UNICEF indicated a 22.5% increase in pregnancy among girls and young women between March 2020 and June 2021. The number of those seeking antenatal care increased from 80,653 to 98,810 in Uganda during the lockdown period. As schools reopened in January 2022 post-lockdown, after almost 2 years, there was an evident increase in teenage pregnancy leaving school administrations faced with challenges of how to support these child mothers.
The first 3 months of pregnancy, or the first trimester, is noted to be crucial in a mother’s life once pregnant. The baby grows from a fertilized cell into a bundle of growing limbs, the brain, and other vital organs. The changes are rapid and require a supportive environment for the embryo to grow. The mother is more prone to suffer from morning sickness, nausea, constipation among other challenges than at any other time of the pregnancy. Most women are prone to get stressed because their hormones are changing creating altering moods. Additionally, inadequate nutrition increased stress, and exposure to chemicals can cause stunted mental and physical growth in the baby or lead to a miscarriage. The pregnant girl, therefore, needs to be well taken care of to support her body and mental health with the pregnancy.
Uganda’s revised guidelines for the prevention and management of teenage pregnancy in school settings indicate a 6 months postnatal period for these girls. This creates room for exclusive breastfeeding. If a girl left school 3 months pregnant, she would approximately need 12 months to stay home to nurse herself both during pregnancy (6 months) and the postnatal period (6 months), considering she has a safe delivery. In the event she didn’t resume school from the first month of pregnancy, she would have a stay home period of 15 months. (9 months pregnancy and 6 postnatal). A postnatal period is required for one’s body to recover after giving birth. The known postnatal period for females is given a grace period of six to eight weeks medically after delivery.
The nutrition status of the pregnant girl and that of the fetus throughout the pregnancy and after birth is in question. While in school, it is not guaranteed she will receive the appropriate diet nor is it an anticipated success at home. When young girls get pregnant, they are more prone to giving birth to low birth weight babies. The girls require support with nutritious feeding to support the growth of a healthy baby and contribute to the reduction of under-nutrition illnesses among children––this predisposes them to malnutrition irrespective of their economic status. Most families with these given circumstances do not know how to give their children a healthy diet and a portion of these are too poor to afford a nutritious meal.
Both pregnant girls and their guardians need psychosocial support in managing the pregnancy and accepting the newborn child. Whereas it is anticipated that a girl can go back to school after giving birth, it is untagged to who is responsible for the newborn while she attends her studies. In some families, both guardians leave home for work and there is no caretaker left to nurture the baby or feed it.
The guardians of these girls need support understanding how it is possible for their children to resume school and thereafter thrive into women with a career even after giving birth. Society still has unaddressed misconceptions about girls getting pregnant. Most children have been forced into marriages resulting from the occurrence of a pregnancy. In some cultural and religious customs, it is forbidden for a girl to get pregnant while she is unwedded thus making her an outcast. Most of these girls have also gotten pregnant due to unawareness of sexual and reproductive health, while some have been subject to sexual violence by someone that they at one time trusted.
In conclusion, more success stories of women who encountered a teenage pregnancy should be uplifted to enlighten both families and the girls who experience teenage pregnancy so that they can still attain their dreams. This awareness will also shift the mindset of the rest of the community members, providing the girls who become pregnant with much-needed community support. In addition to destigmatizing youth pregnancy, we must provide young people with comprehensive sexual education in order to address the myths and circumstances under which these girls have gotten pregnant. Pregnancy should not be a dead-end to these girls’ dreams, instead, we must establish systemic and cultural support to ensure that they will thrive beyond becoming mothers.
Catherine Guntesse Naluggya was a 2020–2021 Global Health Corps fellow and Knowledge Management Officer at Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
Global Health Corps (GHC) is a leadership development organization building the next generation of health equity leaders around the world. All GHC fellows, partners, and supporters are united in a common belief: health is a human right. There is a role for everyone in the movement for health equity. To learn more, visit our website and connect with us on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook.
