To significantly decrease unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, maternal deaths and sexually transmitted diseases globally, we should start talking to boys and girls about their sexual and reproductive health as young as age 10, says a new study out of Georgetown University.

“At a time when sexuality and gender identities are emerging, younger adolescents may experiment with adult sexual behaviors,” write authors Susan M. Igras, Marjorie Macieira, Elaine Murphy and Rebecka Lundgren. “But because of their cognitive developmental stage, (they) are unlikely to correctly assess risks and consequences.”

The researchers define younger adolescence as ranging from age 10 to 14.

The study focuses on adolescent behaviors and risk around the globe, noting 90 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion adolescents live in lower- and middle-income countries.

Victoria Jennings, director of the Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown, says the findings are important to consider in the United States as well.

“The implications are so clear,” Jennings says. “Adolescents in all cultures and every social status are learning at 10, 11, 12 how to match up to gender roles and expectations for them.”

Children as young as 10 are beginning to process messages about how to be popular with the opposite sex, how to gain social status and what they gain — or lose — by delaying potentially risky behaviors.

Yet parents, educators and other decision-makers are often wary of introducing the topics of sexual and reproductive health to young adolescents, Jennings says, because they fear it will encourage them to engage in sexual behavior.