Internet Boosts Pregnancy Levels Amongst Young Chinese Women

In a nation struggling to impose its one-child policy, Internet is boosting fertility. About 50 % of pregnant teens in China's financial center and biggest city, Shanghai, found their partners on the Internet. "Fully 46 % of the more than 20,000 girls who called the city's pregnancy hot line during the past two years said they had sex with boys they met online," said Dr. Zhang Zhengrong of Shanghai's No. 411 Hospital.

The majority of the future fathers were just one night strands, so after finding about the pregnancies, in some cases, the girls did not even know the real name of their partner. The number of calls to the hot line has increased by 12 % since the beginning of school holidays, two weeks ago, and which lasts till August. Previous reports have presented a 30 % rise in abortions by teens during holidays, and there’s a growing number of those looking to end their pregnancies, among high school students aged 16 and 18.

"Callers to the hot line generally knew little about birth control or the physiological aspects of sex and widely considered abortions to be harmless. About 10 % who called had undergone multiple abortions, while there were some who were unaware they were even pregnant until very late," said Zhang.

Zhang believes the situation is due to adult Web sites, videos and books and asked the parents, teachers and the society, generally speaking, to pay more attention to sexual education. Underage sex keeps on being a taboo in China, but abortion is widely available without the need for the parents to be notified, due to the state's long promoted abortion as an element of the one-child family politic.

"79 % of high school and university girls cited the Internet as their main source of information about sex in a survey conducted by our hospital. Just 7.9 % of parents discussed sexual matters with their daughters, while 46 % of parents said it was the responsibility of schools to provide sex education," said Zhang, based on a study made on 2,043 parents, 2,680 teachers and 1,577 teens.

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