The Women, Family and Community Development Minister said the figure covers both married and unmarried teens, based on Health Ministry data.

“Of the 41,842 teen pregnancies, about 50% are Malay, 11% Iban, 9% Orang Asli (Peninsular), 5% Chinese, 3% Indian, with the remainder made up of various other ethnicities,” she said in the Dewan Rakyat on Thursday (Nov 20).

She was responding to Mohd Misbahul Munir Masduki (PN-Parit Buntar), who asked for the number of out-of-wedlock teen pregnancies by ethnicity and the measures being taken to address the issue.

Nancy added that 16,951 of these cases involved unmarried girls, but the Health Ministry does not provide further breakdowns by ethnicity for this category.

She stressed that addressing out-of-wedlock teenage pregnancies required a whole-of-society response.

“Efforts to curb this issue must be mobilised by all parties for the sake of a healthier future generation,” she said.

Nancy said her ministry will soon launch the National Family Policy and National Family Action Plan to strengthen family institutions and improve social stability, including empowering family planning through stronger parental and youth roles.

Ongoing initiatives under the ministry include reproductive health education, counselling, and community-based support.

Among these is the Reproductive and Social Health Education Policy and Action Plan (Pekerti), which aims to raise awareness and promote responsible, resilient behaviour among young people.

Under Pekerti, reproductive health skills are strengthened through both formal school education and non-formal programmes.

These efforts are coordinated across ministries via the National Social Council, with measures such as embedding Pekerti programmes in higher education, expanding Pekerti at community level, and increasing advocacy on reproductive and social health.

Nancy also highlighted support services provided by the National Population and Family Development Board (LPPKN), including KafeTEEN centres, the KafeTEEN truck, and school-based programmes.

“KafeTEEN offers guidance and education to help shape teens who are positive physically, mentally and socially,” she said, adding the initiative currently spans 18 centres, one mobile truck and community outreach activities providing reproductive health clinics and psychosocial counselling.

Peer educator training under Kelab KafeTEEN has also expanded to 143 secondary schools in collaboration with the Education Ministry.

Air quality in Asia is deteriorating over time. According to an Asian Development Bank (ADB) report, air pollution from primary pollutants emitted by human activity has increased in the region over the last 50 years. Recent increases in emissions were primarily driven by rising domestic consumption as well as export-related emissions. Increased domestic consumption and emissions related to exports were also among the main causes of recent emissions spikes.

It is concerning that every day, more than 4 billion people in Asia are exposed to and breathe polluted air.

Pregnant women and young children are two vulnerable groups who are severely impacted by these pollutants.  As a result, it is estimated that air pollution causes 4 million premature deaths annually in Asia and the Pacific.

According to UNICEF, nearly 17 million babies under the age of one live in areas where air pollution is at least six times higher than international standards, exposing them to toxic air and potentially jeopardizing their brain development.

Expanding economies in Asia, impacting air health

South Asia is home to between three-quarters and a million of these children. According to the State of Global Air 2020 report, South Asia was among the countries with children who were affected by worsening  global air quality. According to the report, South Asian countries such as India and Nepal were among the four Asian countries and top ten countries in 2019 with the highest population-weighted average exposure to PM2.5. Meanwhile, UNICEF reported that 4.3 million babies in the East Asia and Pacific region live in areas that exceed six times the limit.

Breathing in particulate air pollution can damage brain tissue and undermine cognitive development in young children, with long lasting effects and setbacks. Pollutants can harm a baby’s developing lungs, according to UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake.

If that is not enough, the blood-brain barrier can be damaged by ultrafine pollution particles, which can then travel to the brain and cause neuro-inflammation.

Some pollutants, like ultrafine magnetite, can enter the body through the gut and olfactory nerve and, because of their magnetic charge, they can cause oxidative stress, which is known to lead to neurodegenerative diseases, the UNICEF reported, adding that other types of pollutants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, can harm areas of the brain that aid in neuron communication.

According to the State of Global Air Initiative, air pollution has been linked to an increased risk of low birth weight and preterm birth, which are the main risk factors for infant mortality between the ages of 0 and 1 month. As a result, babies are more likely to experience health issues like “lower respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, brain damage and inflammation, blood disorders, and jaundice.”

Air pollution endangering baby’s brain development

The impact of pollution on a baby’s brain development is discussed in a more recent study from the University of Colorado Boulder that was published in the journal Environmental Health in 2023. According to the study, toddlers with mothers who experienced higher levels of air pollution during their mid- to late-pregnancy typically perform worse on tests of cognition, motor coordination, and language skills.

The study, which included 161 Latino mother-child pairs, is one of the first to examine the relationship between prenatal pollution exposure and brain development in infancy. The researchers claim that the findings add to a growing data that indicates that exposure to polluted air during crucial developmental phase can have potentially long-lasting effects on children’s health. According to Tanya Alderete, an assistant professor of integrative physiology at CU Boulder, exposure to pollution, especially in the middle to late stages of pregnancy, may have a negative effect on a child’s neurodevelopment.

The researchers employed the US The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Air Quality System, which collects data from ambient monitoring stations across the country to calculate pregnant women’s exposure to pollutants from roadside traffic, industry, wildfire smoke, and other sources. The study also took into account socioeconomic status, the number of times the baby was breastfed per day, whether the infant was born early, late, or on time, the mother’s weight, the baby’s birth weight, and other factors that could influence results.

According to study author Zach Morgan, the timing of the exposure was important, with mid- to late-pregnancy exposures proving particularly harmful to neurodevelopment. He explained that crucial brain circuits that support the sensory, communication, and motor systems form during mid- to late pregnancy.

When the children reached the age of two, they underwent a battery of neurodevelopmental tests designed to assess cognitive, motor, and language abilities.  Two-year-olds who were exposed perinatally to higher levels of inhalable particulate matter (PM 10 and PM 2.5) performed noticeably worse on cognitive tests. Research from the past suggests that inhaled pollutants may come into direct contact with the fetus, causing systemic inflammation and oxidative stress that can affect neurodevelopment. More studies are required to fully understand how pollution affects the developing brain.

Ways to healthy air and well-being

The authors of the studies have recommended the following measures to protect mothers, their children, and populations from the harmful effects of air pollution on health:

1. When possible, avoid airborne pollutants, especially during the second and third trimesters

2. Avoiding outdoor exercise on days with high pollution levels

3. Use an indoor air filtration system

4. While cooking, open the windows

5. Keeping away from second-hand smoke

On a larger scale, the UNICEF recommendations for curbing air pollution may be taken into consideration. These include investing in cleaner, renewable energy sources to replace the burning of fossil fuels, offering affordable, easily accessible public transportation, increasing the amount of green space in urban areas, and providing better waste management options to stop the open burning of hazardous chemicals.

Most importantly, good nutrition for mother and baby, as well as breastfeeding, will strengthen children’s resistance to the detrimental consequences of polluted air.

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New research has found that the protective antibodies pregnant women make against COVID-19 are often passed on to their foetuses – conveying natural immunity, amongst other benefits. Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine also suggest that vaccinating mothers-to-be may also have benefits for their newborns.

According to Dr. Yawei Jenny Yang, an assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine,blood samples from 88 women who gave birth at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center between March and May 2020 had traces of COVID-19 antibodies. This indicated all the women had contracted the virus at some point, even though 58% of those women had no symptoms.

Furthermore, while antibodies were detected in both symptomatic and asymptomatic women, the researchers observed that the concentration of antibodies was significantly higher in symptomatic women. They also found that the general pattern of antibody response in pregnant women was similar to the response seen in the larger patient population in other patients.

In addition, 78% of the babies born to these women had detectable antibodies in their umbilical cord blood. There was no evidence that any of the infants had been directly infected with the virus and all were COVID negative at the time of birth, further indicating that the antibodies had crossed the placenta — the organ that provides oxygen and nutrients to a growing baby during pregnancy — into the foetal bloodstream. Newborns with symptomatic mothers also had higher antibody levels than those whose mothers had no COVID symptoms.

This implies that pregnant women could pass along vaccine-generated antibodies in the same way, potentially shielding both mother and child from future infection.

Dr. Laura Riley, chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine, obstetrician and gynecologist-in-chief at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell and one of the study’s co-authors, is still advising pregnant patients who decide to get vaccinated to continue to follow current safety guidelines to prevent the spread of the disease.

Dr. Riley, Dr. Yang and their colleagues are currently enrolling pregnant women who receive the vaccine, as well as vaccinated mothers who are breastfeeding, to assess the antibody response in those groups after vaccination, to help guide maternal vaccination strategies moving forward.