Characteristics of young pregnant adolescent girls

Includes bibliographical references (pages 105-108)The rate of unmarried teenage pregnancy in the\ud u.s. is increasing (over one million each year) despite\ud efforts by educators and other helping professionals to\ud curtail this trend. This study examines the major\ud health and social issues of teenage pregnancy by\ud identifying and describing the "shared characteristics"\ud of a small target population.\ud Specific methodological steps were carried out to\ud achieve this study's goals. Initially, a review of the\ud literature from three major areas was carried out. In\ud order to elicit appropriate data, interviews with 14\ud pregnant adolescents were then conducted. To help\ud present the results, five vignettes were created.\ud The major findings generated from this study tend\ud to indicate that the subjects' "shared characteristics"\ud are numerous. A composite portrait reveals a 15 year old, \ud unmarried, hispanic, ninth-grader who is pregnant\ud for the first time. She comes from a single-parent\ud working/lower middle class home with no male father\ud figure present. Although she had attended a health/sex\ud education class prior to her pregnancy, she fails to\ud fully comprehend how pregnancy is successfully\ud prevented. Sexual desire was not a motivator for her\ud when she became sexually active. Instead, she seems to\ud possess inadequate assertive skills/self-esteem to\ud prevent her partner from "pushing" her into "sex" with\ud him. She states that her pregnancy was accidental, and\ud once pregnant, expresses that it, the pregnancy, raised\ud her status to adulthood within her family.\ud The recommendations in this study identified and\ud focus on the need to redesign sex education curriculum\ud to fit the perceived needs of this population. One\ud innovative example that is offered is to incorporate\ud these teens' peers, who are teen mothers, as share\ud teachers