More than 20 per cent of girls below 19 pregnant in Humla

By TRN Online, Humla, March 23: More than 20 per cent of girls below 19 have been recorded as pregnant in Humla district. 

The tendency of young-age pregnancy has been rising because of getting married without reaching the legal age. 

According to the Statistics Assistant at the Health Service Office, Durga Bahadur Shrestha, 20 per cent of girls below 19 have been recorded as pregnant from the Nepali month of Shrawan (July) to Magh (February) of the current fiscal year.  

Of the 556 total pregnancies recorded in seven rural municipalities of the district, 112 girls are under 19.

He said that as there are still five months left in the current fiscal year, the number of teenage girls in this age group giving birth will increase further, while in the previous fiscal year 2081/82, the number of teenage girls in this age group giving birth was 137, while in the fiscal year before that, it was 107.

The highest number of teenage girls giving birth before the age of 20 is in Simkot Rural Municipality, with 37.