Early pregnancy and motherhood in South Africa are creating a huge risk in terms of maternal complications and low survival rates of babies, forcing young girls to prematurely take on adult roles for which they are neither emotionally nor physically prepared, reports StatsSA.
So say Statistics South Africa, in its recorded live birth rate report for 2020. Frighteningly, while 899,303 babies were born in 2020, of those, 34,587 were born to girls aged 17 and younger. And of those, 688 were born to moms who were just nine and 10 years old.
Statistics for the recorded live births in 2020 showed that 1,003,307 births were registered in South Africa, but the 899,303 (89.6%) were births that had occurred and were registered in 2020 (current birth registrations), while 104,004 (10.4%) had occurred in previous years but were only registered in 2020, said Stats SA.
KwaZulu-Natal performed dismally when it came to registering births within the stipulated 30-day period. Only 64% of babies born were registered within 30 days.
Stats SA said information about the fathers remained the biggest problem, and in 2020, no reliable information on fathers could be provided because a high proportion of births (more than 60%) were registered without details of fathers.
“Section 10 of the Births and Deaths [Registration Act] prohibits unmarried fathers to have (sic) their information on the birth certificate of a child, which contributes to the high number of births with no information on fathers,” said Stats SA.
This is expected to change in the future as in September this year, the Constitutional Court ruled that this section of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act was unconstitutional. This means unmarried fathers can now have their information registered in the birth certificate of their children at the Department of Home Affairs.
Stats SA – Recorded live births 2020 (Open access)
Stats SA births
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