As citizens across South Africa welcome the New Year, Limpopo Health MEC Phophi Ramathuba has raised concerns over the increasing number of teenage mothers in the province.
This is after a 15-year-old girl gave birth to a baby boy at Malamulele Hospital in the Vhembe district, Limpopo on New Year’s Day.
Limpopo has so far welcomed about 55 babies born in hospitals across the province. Of the people that gave birth, eight of them were teenagers, aged between 15 to 19-years-old.
The country welcomed about 411 newborn babies on New Year’s Day, with Gauteng leading the way with 112 babies, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 84, and the Eastern Cape with 52.
In 2023, Limpopo delivered 32 babies (15 boys, 17 girls) with two teenage mothers.
Ramathuba said it was disheartening to witness such incidents because girls in this age group still needed guidance and are still being looked after by elders and attending school.
“A 15-year-old has become a mother, and a single mother for that matter. We are expecting her to look after life when she still needs to be guided and looked after,” she said.
She said such unplanned teenage pregnancies were depressing moments, since they continued unabated.
Additionally, Ramathuba raised the sale of alcohol to underage children in the province as another reason why hospital trauma units were filled with young people who were stabbed as a result of alcohol exposure.
“In the early hours of Sunday and currently, our hospitals are filled with young people as young as 12 and 13-years-old who have been stabbed as the result of alcohol intoxication,” she said.
She appealed to tavern owners to stop selling alcohol to minors, which in itself is an offence.