Effects of Social-Economic Empowerment of Teenage Mothers and Nurture Care. A Case of Kimbilio Hope Centre, Machakos, Kenya

Abstract

For young children to attain their full potential, they need the five inter-related and indivisible components of nurturing care: adequate nutrition, good health, safety and security, responsive caregiving and opportunities for learning. Provision for nurture care in the early years of life of the child is enhanced by close family members. This explains why secure environments are important for young children and this begins at conception. Teenage mothers undergo a lot of stressful moments during pregnancy periods due to societal norms and community attitude towards them. This has led to family and social rejection thus affecting the unborn child and the development of the child even before birth. This study will investigate ways of enhancing early intervention for the children who belong to teenage mothers to ensure a safe environment before and after birth. This calls for a multidisciplinary approach by all stakeholders to approach the issue of handling teenage mothers during pregnancy and after to ensure that they are social economically empowered. Social empowerment includes creating awareness of the risk of increasing number of young children from teenagers, majority of them come from poor backgrounds. Sensitization is important to all community members and the affected girls for acceptance and support to secure the life of the young children. A secure environment can enhance good nutrition, antenatal care, less rejection and avoidance of forced abortion, early marriages will result in better child growth and development before and after. The stakeholders should assess best practices to enhance social economic empowerment of teenage mothers for them to be well empowered and to bring up their children holistically. The study will be based on ecological models and data will be collected through meta-analysis from literature review and successful stories from the teenage mothers.