Lowell Healthy Families

Lead: How can teen mothers stay in school full time and devote time and energy to the job of mothering?

Brief Synopsis

For the first time in decades, pediatricians all over the country are beginning to recommend breastfeeding as the suggested mode of nourishing one’s infant. Home visiting programs for adolescent mothers such as MSPCC’s Healthy Families program in Lowell also encourage breastfeeding when possible. However, one of the primary goals of the program is to promote continuing education for parenting adolescents. How do the mothers maintain healthy relationships with their infants while staying in school full time? With the implementation of a day care center in both Lowell High School and Lowell Tech, mothers are able to spend valuable time with their infants, including the time and space necessary for breastfeeding. Although the slots are limited, the benefits to both mother and child are enormous.

According to the DHHS, there are approximately 200,000 births a year to girls age 17 and younger. (Program Announcement Number 93631-98-01, Supplementary Information Part II. FY98 Proposed Priority Areas for Projects of National Significance, Priority Area Number 5: Girl Power! Moving from Despair to Empowerment of Girls with Developmental Disabilities. Department of Health and Human Services: Administration for Children and Families)

According to the "National Campaign to Prevent Teen-age Pregnancy", approximately four out of ten girls in the United States becomes pregnant at least once before the age of 20." (Program Announcement Number 93631-98-01, Supplementary Information Part II. FY98 Proposed Priority Areas for Projects of National Significance, Priority Area Number 5: Girl Power! Moving from Despair to Empowerment of Girls with Developmental Disabilities. Department of Health and Human Services: Administration for Children and Families)

When unmarried teenagers become parents, they are unlikely to graduate from high school, their career options are usually decreased, and they often require more community services. (Program Announcement Number 93631-98-01, Supplementary Information Part II. FY98 Proposed Priority Areas for Projects of National Significance, Priority Area Number 5: Girl Power! Moving from Despair to Empowerment of Girls with Developmental Disabilities. Department of Health and Human Services: Administration for Children and Families)

Successful approaches of programs that aid pregnant or parenting adolescents in continuing their education include: providing access to transportation and child care, monitoring school attendance, alternative schools for teenage mothers, home visiting programs and school based programs. (Welfare to Work: Approaches That Help Teenage Mothers Complete High School. (Nov. 9, 1998). The Department of Health and Human Services.)

Teenage mothers (13-19 years) who received home visits from birth to 6 months postpartum were more likely to return to school and less likely to repeat pregnancy than controls at 2 years postpartum." (Field, T.M., Widmayer, W.M., & Ignatoff, E. (1980). Teenage, lower class, black mothers and their preterm infants: An intervention and developmental follow-up. Child Development, 51, 426-436).

A program targeting polydrug-using adolescent mothers through classes, rehabilitation, and day-care for infants during schooling was found to be a cost-effective high school intervention. Infants demonstrated better health and good social adjustment, and the moms showed lower incidence of drug use and repeat pregnancy, and a greater number continued school and received a high school diploma or equivalent or began a job. (Field, T.M., et al. (Spring 1998). Polydrug-using adolescent mothers and their infants receiving early intervention. Adolescence. Vol. 33 (129), 117-143.)

The Ross Laboratories Mothers’ Survey (a national mail survey designed to determine patterns of milk feeding to 6 months of age) found that from 1989 to 1995, the initiation of breastfeeding increased more than 14%. There was also a 19.3% increase in the rate of breastfeeding at 6 months of age. Although there were increases in every socioeconomic group, the greatest increase was found in mothers who typically did not have a history of breastfeeding, such as those who are young, in a lower income group, or have no more than grade school education. (Ryan, A.S. (April 1997). The resurgence of breastfeeding in the United States. Pediatrics. Vol. 99 (4), E12.)

Research has documented that teenage mothers are more likely to drop out of high school, be more socially isolated, develop inadequate job skills, have high unemployment rates, have increased health risks, have early and/or forced marriages, have a higher probability for divorce, and have lower self-esteem." (Samuels, V.J. et al. (1994). Adolescent mothers’ adjustment to parenting. Journal of Adolescence. 17, 427-443).

A volunteer peer-counseling program for promoting breastfeeding was evaluated between 1994 and 1996. Women in the intervention program did improve their dietary intake when compared with the control group; 82% of the women in intervention initiated breastfeeding whereas only 31% of women in the control group did. At 4 weeks, 56% of intervention and 10% of control group women were still breastfeeding. (Schafer, E.; Vogel, M.K.; Viegas, S.; & Hausafus, C. (June 1998). Volunteer peer counselors increase breastfeeding duration among rural low-income women. Birth. Vol. 25 (2), 101-106.)

This article shows that there is more of a push towards eliminating seclusion of adolescent mothers from peers by implementing day-care facilities and continued educational endeavors for the mother. General thought shows that if these programs are implemented in schools beginning in the ninth grade to provide academic, technical/vocational, or business school training, the overall pregnancy rate may go down. (Sugar, M. (Fall 1991). Adolescent Pregnancy in the USA—Problems and Prospects. Adolescent and Pediatric Gynecology. Vol. 4 (4), 171-182.)

Germer, Fawn. (Dec. 13, 1998). Agencies target teen pregnancy. The Tampa Tribune.
Covers a Florida home visiting program targeted towards educating teens in birth control methods to avoid repeat pregnancies, as well as health and school/job education.

Jones, Tamara. (April 28, 1996). The Girls on the Bus; They’re Children With Children, and a Tough Route Ahead. The Washington Post.
Discusses the life of teenagers with children who attend a high school with a day care and strong educational programs for adolescent mothers.

O’Rourke, Kerry. (April 16, 1995). Board rejects high school as site for day care center. The Baltimore Sun.
A Maryland school district discusses the possibility of implementing a day care center for infants of teenage mothers.

Complied by Priya Luthra