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Child and Adolescent Sexuality: Perspectives and Recommendations

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Behavioral Pediatrics

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Abstract

As American society enters the decade of the 90s, it stands at a critical juncture regarding sexuality in its youth. Observation of the last two decades reveals an increased number of sexually active youth, better methods of contraception, and more open societal dialogue regarding sexuality matters.1 However, there has also been a dramatic increase in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) (see Chapter 27), including the emergence of a new and consistently lethal STD, namely AIDS2 Noted also is a persistent 1 million teenage pregnancies each year, almost one third ending in abortion, and an increasing number of teenaged parents whose offspring too often have very negative psychosocial outcomes generating much concern for society3 (see Chapter 24). The numbers of babies and youth afflicted by crackcocaine (Chapter 32), maternal alcoholism, sexually transmitted diseases (Chapter 27), child molestation (Chapter 11), physical abuse, abandonment by father and/or mother, and neglect (intentional or out of ignorance) are enormous4.Adolescents are not the perpetrators of the sexual revolution but, in many ways, are its victims.

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Authors
  1. Ronald M. Eagar
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies, Michigan State University, Kalamazoo, MI, 49001, USA

    Donald E. Greydanus

  2. Child Development Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37232-3573, USA

    Mark L. Wolraich

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© 1992 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.

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Eagar, R.M. (1992). Child and Adolescent Sexuality: Perspectives and Recommendations. In: Greydanus, D.E., Wolraich, M.L. (eds) Behavioral Pediatrics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2774-8_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2774-8_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7663-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-2774-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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