Early first sexual intercourse (FSI) is a risk factor for unplanned teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted infection, and adverse social, emotional, and physical health outcomes in adolescence and into adulthood. The aim of this study was to examine relationships between internalizing (eg, anxious/depressed, withdrawn) and externalizing (eg, delinquent, aggressive) behavior problems in childhood and age at FSI.
We used a large, population-based birth cohort (The Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort [Raine] Study) to address this question. Child behavior was measured by using the Child Behavior Checklist collected from parents at ages 2, 5, 8, 10, and 14 and scores calculated for total, internalizing, and externalizing behavior problems. At age 17, 1200 participants reported sexual behavior.
Participants with clinically significant Child Behavior Checklist scores (T ≥60) were at increased risk for earlier first sexual intercourse (FSI) (<16 years). Adjusted odds ratios revealed that total and externalizing behavior problems from age 5 years onward significantly increased the risk of earlier FSI for boys. In girls, externalizing problems from age 10 years increased the risk for earlier FSI. Internalizing problems at ages 8 and 10 were significantly associated with early FSI for boys but not girls.
Externalizing behavior from as early as 5 in boys and 10 in girls is a significant risk factor for earlier age at FSI. Adolescent sexual health promotion should consider early intervention in children with behavior problems, particularly boys.
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Breastfeeding and Failure of Affetional Bonding
Two behavioral measures of maternal-infant/child affectional bonding:
1) baby-carrying during the first year of life and 2) breastfeeding for 2.5 years or greater are the singular developmental events that can PREVENT infant mortality and suicide in the teen and adult years of life.
These early life events form the foundation for the neurointegrative brain (joy, happiness and love) as opposed to the development of the neurodissociative brain (depression, alienation, homicidal and suicidal violence).
These Two Cultural Brains are formed during the early years of brain- behavioral development, which makes possible sexual affectional bonding relationships that reinforce the Neuroassciative Brain, where Egalitarian and Harmonious Relationships become possible. The following data are provided In support of this reality.
Baby-carrying bonding was found to predict with 80% accuracy the peaceful and violent behaviors ("killing, torturing, mutilation of enemy captured in warfare") in 49 tribal cultures distributed throughout the world. 100% prediction of Peaceful or Violent cultures was possible when youth sexuality was permitted or punished was added as a predictive variable.
Weaning age of 2.5 years or longer in 26 tribal cultures was found to be characteristic of 77% (20/26) of tribal cultures rated low or absent in suicide. 82% (14/17) cultures with weaning age 2.5 yrs and greater and support youth sexuality are rated low or absent in suicides
Baby-carrying during the first year of life and weaning age of 2.5 years or longer was common to 63% of the cultures studied, thus indicating the high correlation of these child rearing practices.
This writer predicts that the quality of human sexual relationships are determined by early life experiences of Pleasure and Pain.
Different outcomes of this study would have been reported if these early life experiences were assessed.
James W. Prescott, Ph.D.
Conflict of Interest: None declared
Prescott, J.W. (1975) Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence. The Futurist April. Reprinted: The Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists (1975) November. http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html
Prescott, J.W. (1980). Somatosensory affectional deprivation (SAD) theory of drug and alcohol use. In:Theories On Drug Abuse: Selected Contemporary Perspectives. Dan J. Lettieri, Mollie Sayers and Helen Wallenstien Pearson, Eds.) NIDA Research Monograph 30, March 1980. National Institute on Drug Abuse, Department of Health and Human Services. Rockville, MD.
Prescott, J.W. (1996). The Origins of Human Love and Violence. Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal.10(3):143-188.Spring. http://www.violence.de/prescott/pppj/article.html