Experience of the Teenage Pregnancy and Motherhood

Being a mother is never easy for anyone, especially for teenager. Although teenage birth rates have decreased considerably since a mid-1950s peak (Ventura & Hamilton, 2011), the current birth rate of 39 per 1,000 teens in the United States is still higher than that in most other Western nations (Abma et al., 2010). Teenage moms don’t have a typical teenage life compared with the lives of most kids their age. My best friend in high school, Elma, was pregnant and became a mother in tenth grade. I’ve never forgotten the day when she sent me a photo of a very faint pink line of her home pregnancy test. She talked with her mother. She was disappointed but wasn’t mad. She considered an abortion or adoption, but she couldn’t give her baby away. Finally, she decided to keep the baby and learned to become a good mother. She couldn’t imagine everything changing for her from that day. A 2010 Teen Parents Research Report shows the biggest new mothers challenges is the change in their identity. Young mothers feel this much more than an adult because the sense of their identity was not fully developed. These three solutions to help teenage mom survive from their difficult life are: teaching themselves about baby knowledge, managing their life, and asking for help.

From the start, the first solution to help prepare themselves to fight with the hard challenge happening in the next following months is the knowledge about pregnancy and child rearing. Pregnant teenage moms are more likely to suffer complications during labor. Their babies have risks to experience premature birth, low birth weight or many other newborn health problems. There are plenty of sources which they can research for information. They can also ask for advice from doctors. For example, after making sure the pregnancy is viable (possible to carry to term), Elma decided to keep the baby and try to become a good mother, she read a lot of articles on pregnancy websites and learned about how babies develop. She also took prenatal vitamins and went to all of the required baby checkups. Moreover, she bought cook books, and found out what food is healthy for her and her baby. Although her pregnancy was considered a high risk because her age, her baby boy turned out really well after 10 hours of labor.

Secondly, scheduling their daily time is one of the best ways to help them adopt their new lives with newborns. Teenage mothers need to plan to go back to school to graduate and further go to college to ensure for either future of them or their baby. Besides the time for school and baby, it is necessary for them to stay active socially. Relationships with friends, family, or a boyfriend are so important to them. That help these girls can pass the hard time like pregnancy which can cause a lot of changes, such as mood swings, fatigue. However, it is easy to say it than do it. These young moms may be really tired during their pregnancy and when the babies are born. It means they will spend more time for sleeping, then talking care of there kids than seeing friends. To help with this, they should plan and budget their time, such as planning short group events, so they can see multiple people at the same time. The same problems happen to Elma, after feeling better from the labor and ready for her baby, she came back school and held back one year to make sure that she can follow the classes. Although relationships and social life are extremely important no matter how young or old, Elma couldn’t hang out with her old friends anymore. Mainly because the things which they talked about, the clothes which they wore, and the way they spent money and time are different than her. However, she kept going to take part in social activities and chatting with me as her best friends. In that way, although she didn’t have many friends but she still ok with her social life. In other hand, Elma’s boyfriend (her son’s dad) never really wanted to become a dad, so he stayed out of the picture. Baby belongs to her, so she thought about him anytime and tried the best to take care for him. For example, she gave up staying up late to listening to music or talking on the phone. Instead, she went to bed early at 9:00 so she could get up at 6.am with her son. She also learned how to use her time more efficiently, that way she can balance the time with her son and the time for school.

The third solution to make a life of teenage mom easier is that she should share the news and ask for help. Telling people that you are pregnant is very difficult, but you need to find support and get access to care. These girls can find helping and supporting from their parents because pregnant teen probably live at home and depend on their parents. Because they were through at least one time before, their experiences about taking care of baby are undoubtedly useful for these unwanted moms. Their parents can help them do babysit when they have activity at school or need time for homework. However, most pregnant teenage are scared to talk with their parents about that news because not everyone is going to go well, but not all of them are going to go badly. They should break the news to their parents anyway and prepare for their parents’ response. If they wait until too late to tell them, that can be dangerous for them and their babies. Some people may be angry at first but loosen up later. As Elma, talking the news to her parents is her best decision. Her parents were disappointed, but they did the best to help her. Her mom had her brother when she was seventeen, so she totally understood and knew what risks which Elma could have from having baby in that age. Although she got the part-time jobs to help pay for her son’ stuff, but basically, her parents support for both. Moreover, her mother did babysit when she worked and taught her a lot of things, such as how to hold the baby, feed him or calm him down when he fuss nonstop.

In conclusion, teenage mothers need a special care from their pregnancy, laboring to taking care of the newborn. Their lives must be different, harder and busier to the other people in same age. Therefore, getting more awareness, scheduling life time, and asking for support are three solutions that can help them pass the difficult time and still continue to prepare for their future with the babies.