Teen pregnancy rates challenge Palm Beach County agencies - Sun-Sentinel
"I wasn't planning on being pregnant, and it took me a while to get it through my head that I was pregnant and that I would be a mom," she said.
Hoefsmit in 2010 became one of hundreds of Palm Beach County teens each year who get pregnant, a stubborn reality that health officials are confronting with mixed success.
In 2009, 1,181 teens became pregnant. In 2008, 1,338 did, according to state data.
Teen birthrates in Palm Beach County have fallen 26.6 percent over the last five years, to 26.7 per 1,000 in 2010 from 36.4 per 1,000. But percentages aside, health officials say the numbers are too high and that an even bigger problem must be dealt with - teen mothers who become pregnant again despite numerous efforts to keep them on birth control or abstinent.
Although repeat teen birthrates have fallen slightly, to 19.9 per 1,000 in 2009 from 20.1 per 1,000 in 2008, the overall rate is still higher than the state average, officials said. Rates for 2010 are not yet available.
"It continues to be this cycle that has not been broken," said Cory Neering, vice president of education at Planned Parenthood of South Florida and the Treasure Coast.
Pregnant on purpose
Lisa Durgee, a registered nurse and the Palm Beach County Health Department's adolescent-care coordinator, partly blames television shows and other media for their portrayals of teen pregnancy.
"We do have a lot of teens that are pregnant because they want to be pregnant, not because it was an accident," Durgee said. "They are coming every month for a pregnancy test, even after all the education we have given them and suggesting birth control methods that they don't want. That's a sign to me that they want to be pregnant."
Durgee, who works with teens from Boynton Beach to Boca Raton and gets called by the school district each time a student reveals she is pregnant, said more needs to be done to inform teens of how an early pregnancy can affect their lives.
Durgee will make sure the mom and baby have adequate health care during pregnancy and through birth. She intervenes in the girl's life even after the child is born, encouraging the mom to use birth control or abstain.
Neering for more than a decade has worked with Palm Beach County teens who are either pregnant or at risk of becoming pregnant. Repeat births may be triggered by teenagers too preoccupied with meeting their infants' needs to focus on personal issues such as contraception, he said.
"They become an adult and are dealing with these adult issues, and the very presence of comprehensive sexual education is really out the window," Neering said.
Program provides aid
Teens with multiple children have a higher risk of dropping out and often fall into a cycle of poverty that becomes difficult to escape, said Marlene Passell of the Children's Services Council of Palm Beach County.
"It's almost totally impossible that (repeat teen birth) moms are going to complete their education, and their children are much more likely to follow in that cycle," Passell said.
To help reduce teen births, the children's council started the Nurse Family Partnership two years ago. The free program provides low-income, first-time moms with support and services until the child turns 2. Passell said the program helps prevent subsequent teen births as well as child abuse and neglect.
"It can't be just by lecturing to teens. It needs to be giving them alternatives that improve their self-esteem and help them see they have a future," she said.
Just a year ago, Hoefsmit, then 15, was pregnant and terrified. But despite her young age and her mother's concerns, and a bout of gestational diabetes, Hoefsmit wanted to carry the baby to term. She did, and Arianna Reyes turned 1 on Aug. 11.
Hoefsmit, who was aided by a nurse from the Nurse Family Partnership throughout her pregnancy, agreed that teens with children struggle to balance their lives with those of their infants.
While Hoefsmit took seven high school courses online, she either fed or cradled her baby to sleep, or sat her in a bouncer until she finished her work.
After her experience, she wants to wait to have another child, she said, and she advises sexually active teens to be cautious.
"You have to know your consequences when you do have sex," Hoefsmit said. "You have to think that just from one time (having sex) you could have a baby and then what - you have to take care of this child all your life."
31 Aug, 2011--
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