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Women groups in the Wa Municipal have identified inadequate reproductive health education as a major contributory factor to teenage pregnancies in the northern parts of Ghana. The women comprising hair dressers, address makers, sheabutter producers and persons with disabilities as well as gender desk officers said young girls were not educated on reproductive health and sex. The women explained that young girls were left to their fate and they rather learnt about reproductive health and sex from outsiders and peer groups instead of their parents. �These unfortunate young girls received wrong education from their peer groups and in their quest to practice them resulted in pregnancies, and loss of lives,� they said. �We think young girls should be educated on reproductive health and sex early enough at the age of 10 so that they would grow up with the education. Early education at the tender ages of young girls is important to help reduce teenage pregnancies and maternal and child death.� The women said teenage pregnancies and maternal and child deaths would continue to be the lot of parents if they waited for their daughters to have menstruation before they were educated on sex. The women raised these concerns at a day�s forum organised for them by Pagba Saha Foundation in Wa for them to share experiences on issues pertaining to reproductive health and sex. The women also discussed causes leading to maternal and child deaths, the preference of pregnant women to have deliveries at home instead of health facilities and the inadequate husbands care for pregnant women. The women said in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions it was a taboo to talk about sex with children, adding: �the only time a girl hears about sex from her parents is when she menstruates, which is too late for her to practice�. Some of the women also assigned poverty as one of the factors that pushed young girls into practicing early sex and that it was difficult for some parents to feed their children properly and also provide them with their basic needs. According to the women some young girls even supplement their family feeds with what they got from young friends and the lack of basic needs pushed them to young men who in their quest for sex provided them with those needs. On maternal deaths, the women said the refusal of pregnant women to attend prenatal services at health facilities, self-medication, delay in coming to hospitals when in labour and transporting women in labour on donkey carts, bicycles and motorcycles accounted for some of the maternal deaths in the region. Over reliance on herbal preparations, cooking leaves and roots to treat diseases without checking from hospitals were some of the causes leading to maternal and child deaths, the explained. The women also mentioned the refusal by husbands to buy prescribed drugs for their pregnant women and doctor/patient relationship as well as nurses making mockery of pregnant women for wearing dirty and tattered clothes as some of the causes discouraging many women from attending health facilities to deliver. �Some nurses even tell us to go for HIV/AIDS test if not; we should not come to the hospital to deliver when we are in labour. This behaviour of nurses at health facilities in the municipality is not helping us to come to the hospitals to deliver�, the women said. Hajia Sawuratu, Chief Executive Producer of Pagba Saha Foundation, said the Foundation was doing a baseline study on reproductive health in the three northern regions.