Background
Kalasin province, in northeastern Thailand, has a high teenage pregnancy rate. Many of these adolescents suffer from pregnancy-related health complications like anaemia, early labour and give birth to babies with low birth weight. Although there is a need for youth friendly services for pregnant adolescents, the Kalasin Hospital only has one antenatal clinic – where both adults and adolescents go to access pregnancy care services. Around 60 women visit this clinic each day, which has led to long waiting hours and short appointments, where the health workers don’t always have time to answer questions and discuss their clients’ experiences and concerns.

About the project
This project was created to improve health services for pregnant adolescents at the Kalasin Hospital. The project team started by facilitating group discussions with pregnant adolescents in order to understand their needs. They then established a special clinic for pregnant adolescents, in a comfortable corner of the regular antenatal care unit at the hospital. This corner was open once a week for adolescents to visit and access counselling services and health education on topics related to pregnancy and sexual and reproductive health.

Results
By the end of the project, adolescents had increased access to youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services. The project team observed that the pregnant adolescents and their partners who visited the youth corner paid great attention to the education and counselling provided to them and by the end of the project their level of knowledge on pregnancy, pregnancy-related health complications and contraceptives had increased significantly. This project ended in 2007 and in 2011 the project team reported that the adolescent pregnancy rates had decreased in the Kalasin province.

Year: 2007