Services for low-income pregnant females in Delaware County, Indiana

Delaware County offers a wide variety of services to low-income pregnant families. Many of the females not only lack income, but they also lack knowledge of community services available to them, and lack problem solving skills which would enable them to reach satisfactory solutions to their problems.In Indiana the teenage pregnancy rate is 11%; it is even higher in Delaware County at approximately 16%. According to Lowenkron, H., (1988), Delaware County's death rate for infants is slightly over 12%. Most of these teens during their first pregnancy are very ignorant of health care services available to them and their expected baby.The high schools would be an excellent channel to educate future parents of services prior to the need. Many surveys indicate teenage sexual activity begins early in their teen years; consequently, many teens will not finish high school without a pregnancy occurring. The increased knowledge of services available, hopefully, will lead to increased uses of these services earlier in pregnancy. There is a direct correlation with prenatal care and the health of the newborn.The intervention of early prenatal care to the already high risk mother would increase her chances of giving birth to a full-term, healthy infant. This would be a major benefit to all aspects of our society--the newborn, mother, special services, special education, taxpayer, and medical cost for. them. The prenatal costs are many fold less than maintenance care of a defective baby.This writer feels that a need exists for coordination of services. An audio-visual program showing facilities, a brief summary of services offered, and a brochure, that has all the information summarized as a resource to the pregnant female, have been developed.Department of Home EconomicsThesis (M.S.