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Jim Liebelt Christian Blog and Commentary

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Jim Liebelt

Jim Liebelt's Blog

Teen Pregnancy May Raise Risk of Early Death

  • 2024Mar 18

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Teen pregnancy can change the trajectory of one's life, but now a new study suggests it could also shorten that life.

Canadian researchers report that women who were pregnant as teenagers were more likely to die before they reached the age of 31.

“The younger the person was when they became pregnant, the greater their risk was of premature death,” study first author Dr. Joel Ray, an obstetric medicine specialist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto told the New York Times. “Some people will argue that we shouldn’t be judgmental about this, but I think we’ve always known intuitively that there’s an age that is too young for pregnancy.”

The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, turned to a health insurance registry to track pregnancy outcomes among just over 2 million teenagers in Ontario, Canada. That database included all girls who were 12 between April 1991 and March 2021.

The results suggest that even after weighing confounding factors like other health issues, income and education, teens who carried pregnancies to term were more than twice as likely to suffer premature death.

While the dangers dropped somewhat among women who had terminated a pregnancy as teenagers, those women were still 40 percent more likely to die prematurely, compared with those who had not been pregnant as teens.

Exactly what cut their lives short? Women who had been pregnant as teenagers were more than twice as likely to die young of an unintentional injury, while they were twice as likely to die from a self-inflicted injury.

Source: HealthDay
https://www.healthday.com/health-news/pregnancy/teen-pregnancy-may-raise-risk-of-early-death

More Than a Third of Teens Say They Spend Too Much Time on Their Phones

  • 2024Mar 13

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by AOL.

The always-online generation may be starting to unplug a bit.

Around 40% of teenagers say they have cut back on their time on social media, according to a report published by the Pew Research Center. Nearly the same proportion of teens acknowledge that they spend “too much” time on their smartphones (38%) and social media (27%).

The Pew report indicates that some teens may be taking matters into their own hands by setting stricter boundaries around their tech use.

All but 5% of US teens now have access to a smartphone and a separate Pew study from December found that one-third of teens say they use at least one of the five major social media platforms — YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram or Facebook — “almost constantly.”

According to the recent report, teen girls, who some believe are especially at risk of impacts to their mental health and body image from social media, are more likely to say they spend too much time on their phones (44%) than teen boys (33%).

Still, the majority of teens of all ages (51%) believe they use their smartphones “about the right amount.”

“Teens who report spending too much time on social media and smartphones are especially likely to report cutting back on each,” the report states.

To conduct the report, Pew surveyed 1,453 U.S. teenagers ages 13 to 17 and their parents between September 26 and October 23, 2023.

Source: AOL
https://www.aol.com/more-third-teens-spend-too-164804753.html

Loneliness And Depression In Teens Linked To Lack Of Sleep And Early School Start Times

  • 2024Mar 12

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by Forbes.

Teenagers who wake up early for school, sleep less than eight hours per night or spend time on their electronic devices within an hour of going to bed are more likely to have experienced depression and loneliness, results of a new National Sleep Foundation survey showed.

Fewer than two out of every 10 of the more than 1,100 American teenagers surveyed reported they get the recommended amount of sleep per night.

Among those who don’t get enough sleep were those who start school before the foundation-recommended time of 8:30 a.m.; seven out of 10 students said they start school earlier and those who do have higher levels of depressive symptoms than their peers.

Those who have difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep also had their mental health negatively impacted: those who found it hard to fall asleep one or fewer nights per week were less likely to be depressed than those who struggled two or more nights.

The National Sleep Foundation asked teenagers to report their nighttime sleep behaviors and assigned grades based on how well they prioritized healthy rest. The behaviors include avoiding substances before bed (64% of respondents say they practice the habit daily), sleeping in a quiet, cool and dark environment (62%), keeping a consistent bedtime (27%) and avoiding electronic devices before bed, which only 9% of teenagers said they do daily. Depressive symptoms were reported much less by those who scored an A or B grade on the assessment of sleep-promoting behaviors (5% of high scoring respondents) than those who scored an F (19%).

Source: Forbes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/03/07/loneliness-and-depression-in-teens-linked-to-lack-of-sleep-and-early-school-start-times-new-report-shows/