Was ‘teen mum’ issue shoddy reporting?

First, you confuse ‘teenage’ with under-18 rates.

Second, you confuse pregnancies (conceptions) with births. Since about two in five conceptions in this age group end in abortion, then the number of births is a lot lower than you report, with 76, not 129, maternities amongst under-18s (and certainly not the 24 you report for under-16s).

Third, you provide confusing and contradictory figures on pages 4 and 12; on the former you say that teen pregnancies cost ‘each taxpayer £15,000 per year’, whereas in the comment you say that the £15,000 is ‘for each teenage mother’.

In any event, it is hard to see how the figure of £15,000 is arrived at from the other figure you provide of £4m ‘on average’; what on earth does this mean and how was this figure derived?

But the general tone of your article is demeaning and stigmatising. Some of the costs associated with early parenting go towards helping young parents remain in education (through the Care to Learn scheme); are you really implying that these initiatives to support young parents and their children should not be maintained?

The vast majority of young parents do an amazing job in the face of serious adversity and this is not helped by the inaccuracies and tone of your sensationalist coverage. Do terms like the ‘problem plaguing Southampton’ really help to lead to an informed and sensible debate on the topic?

Finally, although you mention the figure of 129 conceptions in 2012, you forget to mention that the numbers over the previous four years had been 198, 188, 181 and 170. For births, the number has declined from 149 in 1998 to 76 in 2012. You claim in your comment that the recent fall in numbers has ‘stalled’; hardly!

The latest figures indicate the incredible success of the national and local strategies along with the dedicated work of many staff in clinics, schools and the voluntary sector.

Although some may feel these numbers are still ‘too high’ (whatever that means) it would have been fairer and more honest of you to have acknowledged these recent trends.

PROFESSOR ROGER INGHAM, Centre for Sexual Health Research, University of Southampton.

Editor’s note: PROFESSOR Ingham raises some interesting points.

And let me begin by acknowledging that, while both the Daily Echo’s article and comment piece on April 22 that covered the topic of the cost of teenage pregnancies in Southampton made plain the estimated cost by the city council to taxpayers as a whole is £15,000 for each teenage parent. An accompanying piece in the printed version of artwork did contain the error that this cost was for each individual taxpayer (this artwork did not appear in the online version of the article).

This is an error for which we apologise.

This paper’s articles on the issue of teenage mums were based on a lengthy document published by Southampton City Council, a report which certainly did not approach the subject as if it were anything other than a problem to be faced.

It is the council’s report that states that: “becoming a teenage parent has a high correlation with a range of poor outcomes for both children and mothers.”

It is the report which states: “Southampton has poor sexual health and high teenage pregnancy rates compared to the South East and England.”

The report goes on to warn of a high risk that the decline in under-18 conceptions seen in recent years – and mentioned in our article – may falter. “This would risk significant social and financial costs for individuals, their families and the city as a whole in the long term.”

It is the council’s own report that refers to teenage pregnancies – the title of the report is, in fact, Tackling Teenage Pregnancies – as the subject under discussion, and both it and we make plain this refers to teenagers under the age of 18.

Far from this paper, then, sensationalising this issue, it is obvious that the concerns are being voiced by the city council’s own Health and Wellbeing Board.

Such are those concerns that, again as we reported, the council is to create local champions to tackle the issue and create a new task force.

Professor Ingham points out that while we accurately report the number of teenage pregnancies (under-18) in the city from the report, we do not point out that some of these are terminated through abortion. This is true.

But such figures are not included in the council’s report, nor alluded to.

And nowhere does this paper suggest, as he claims, that initiatives to support pregnant teenagers and young parents should be curtailed or removed. Such a claim is, I would contend, far more outrageous and sensationalist than anything reported in our articles.

In fact, the Daily Echo’s comment piece does question whether all such pregnancies should be seen as “problems” when in fact in many cases families and parents would see such an eventuality as quite the opposite.

Professor Ingham asks whether terms used in the article help an informed and sensible debate on the topic. Setting aside his own rather sensational terms used in his letter, could I suggest he targets his comments towards the city council who created the report in the first place?

IAN MURRAY, Editor in Chief, Southern Daily Echo, Southampton.