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Plight repeats itself
Multiple pregnancies often occur as result of hopeless feeling
04:44 PM CST on Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Teen mothers often feel hopeless, as if they have nothing to look forward to in life. The lack of prospects can lead them back to where their burden began, pregnant with a second child soon after the first, said Bill O'Hare, coordinator of a nationwide study called Kids Count. "You'd think one would discourage them from having another," said Mr. O'Hare of the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation. "It's more of a fatalism. They feel like their life is beaten down, and they don't have any choices, so why not have another child?" Teen mothers in Texas have second babies before they hit their 20s at a higher rate than any other state, according to the study. States with the lowest rates are mainly in New England. The study is based on 2001 births, the latest year for which data are available. Even so, teen birth rates have fallen since 1991 nationally and in Texas. The Dallas Commission on Youth and Children reports that fewer teens have sex; more use contraceptives; and prevention programs are changing teen practices. Mr. O'Hare said one-fifth of births nationally to teen mothers are at least second children. In Texas, 25 percent of teen births are to girls who are already mothers, according to Child Trends, a nonprofit research center for children and families. Mr. O'Hare said he was surprised while working on the study by how many teenagers become pregnant again. Teen mothers typically have lower education levels, a greater likelihood of poverty and impaired infant health, according to a study by the Center for Law and Social Policy. Another child only compounds those problems. Children born to unwed teenage high school dropouts are 10 times more likely to live in poverty than those born to married high school graduates in their 20s. Traci Brown, a social worker in the Dallas school district who counsels teen parents, said she's seen more girls pregnant with second children than ever before. "It's been a very frustrating year. In the past, I was able to pride myself on that I had very low repeat numbers," she said. "Now, some of the girls were pregnant last year and now they're pregnant again." Their first pregnancy was usually accidental; often, the second one is planned when girls are in a stable relationship, Ms. Brown said. Often their boyfriend wants another child. When she talks to teen parents, abstinence is stressed, but she encourages them to talk about family planning with their doctors. She's never the first to bring up birth control. She asks them how they can avoid having a second child. "You tell them without telling," she said. 
