News : Studies on adolescent motherhood in Cuba are varied and have been increasing over time, to the extent that awareness of the importance of its social control has spread.
School level
School level: It is between completed secondary and upper secondary level. In 1997, rural areas had 79% of their mothers under 19 years of age at these levels, and in urban areas, 93.9%. In rural areas, those who had completed secondary school predominate, and in urban areas those with a high-school level. This level may seem satisfactory for other realities, but for today’s Cubans it is a level with which only very poorly paid jobs are obtained.
Sexual conduct
Sexual behavior: A good part of adolescent mothers do not use contraception and have had an abortion before their first delivery. They tend to alternate contraception with abortion, or almost always use it for the first time after having one. The use of contraception is not sustained and therefore they reach a second pregnancy or abortion. There is more knowledge about contraception than its use, and the most commonly used contraceptives are tablets and IUDs. There is a consensus on classifying sexual behavior as risky.
Work influences these attitudes
Occupation: Most of those who give birth are housewives or do not carry out any activity. Sometimes pregnancy causes school dropouts, but the opposite often happens, pregnancy occurs because one has a stable partner and no alternative life project to motherhood. In 1997, the inactive adolescent mothers were 95.9% of all mothers in those ages, of them 87.2% declared themselves dedicated to housework and 8.6% to study. They represented 24.18% of all young mothers declared inactive and within that category 22.9% of those dedicated to the home. The opposite happens with the majority of those who perform abortions who are busy as students and wish to continue their studies, which is why they decide on a surgical intervention. Sexual behavior among them is also risky and involves situations similar to those expressed here in relation to the use of contraception among adolescent mothers; the difference is that they do have an alternative life project to motherhood and it appears postponed in their lives.
Marital situation
Adolescent motherhood is preceded by an early nuptiality that extends to all women at these ages, but is accentuated among those who start motherhood earlier. In 1997, adolescent mothers who were married or in union were 12.65% of all those given birth in this marital situation, 92.1% of all mothers who gave birth that year at those ages. Within this group, those with the greatest weight were the United States, which represented 77.1%, the majority both between the ages of 15 to 19, and among the minors. However, among those under the age of 15, single women followed in order of importance, and among the most adult women married and then single women. Although consensual union seems to be the most generalized form of marital status sought by women in this group. , they are not conceived as lifelong unions,rather, a relationship is observed between early nuptiality and early separation. In 1995 divorces among adolescent women were concentrated among those with less than one year of union duration, they were 58.28% of all adolescents who divorced that year. However, adolescent women seem less unstable than men, since those who were in a union for less than a year represent 62.8% of all those divorced at that age.
The fundamental element family
Family interaction: Research shows a history of early motherhood among adolescent mothers, a fact from which it is inferred that the phenomenon is a cultural pattern that is inherited from one generation to another through the socialization that occurs within the mother-child relationship . The family attitude towards early pregnancy seems to be more permissible today when values such as the preservation of virginity before marriage have been shaken and pregnancy is not seen as a disgrace to the family. In an investigation carried out in gyneco-obstetric hospitals, 80% of the adolescents responded that they received support from their parents. But this support almost always comes when the problem has arisen, among other reasons motivated by a dysfunction in family communication around to sexuality,highly nuanced by taboos, prejudices and the absence of dialogue between parents and children.