CANADA: Christmas Peak Time for Unwanted Pregnancies: Parents Urged to Talk to Teens

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

CANADA: Christmas Peak Time for Unwanted Pregnancies: Parents Urged to Talk to Teens

Canadian Press (12.21.04) - Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Kate Skye

The Christmas season is a peak time for unintended pregnancies, according to Louise Christian, project coordinator for Planned Parenthood's regional office in Trail, British Columbia. She hopes parents will use the holidays as an opportunity to talk to teens about healthy sexual choices. "The choice of words that was shared by [the Planned Parenthood] head office was, 'Keep it wrapped for Christmas and New Years,' in other words: Use condoms," Christian said.

Young people are bombarded with sexual imagery, said Marilyn Nelson, a volunteer with the city's bi-monthly sexual health clinic. "And sometimes they see people not making wise choices, or making spontaneous choices without any planning. It's hard not to absorb that and eventually come to think that's the way everybody lives," she said.

Dr. Margaret MacDiarmid, who works at the Trail clinic, understands it's hard for parents to acknowledge that their children are having sexual feelings. However, she urged parents to remember how they felt as teens and to rise above embarrassment about the topic. "I'm not going to tell parents how to raise their kids, but I think kids do a lot better if they learn their sexual information from their parents than from the street." She added, "If parents don't tell their kids, they will learn it on the street and it won't be a very nice version."

Condoms are available at the Trail clinic, which offers a family doctor, a public-health nurse, and trained volunteers who provide free education and counseling.
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