WBEZ Special: Teen Pregnancy: From Babydolls to Babies

right this is a wbez chicago alive and in depth look into its equal institutions and topics of concern at issue in his book i found out i was pregnant i was sixteen years old and my

apartment was eighteen and an enemy where we are very confused at first but we do have love we were very much in love and that which is why like people die of like girls don't have love and relationship and they have sex but they don't have of and that's why so many girls are in good positions we meantime got married i had you know time online and i knew i am learning or have been married and everything will work out fine but there are like those who die of an ear and they're like very much alone and i'm very lucky teenage pregnancy for a baby dolls to maybe it starts with the birds and the beatles and where does it all and marriage abortion her life as an unwed mother and saxons

weren't written all over the place on billboards radio tv scroll on the graffiti walls of the school bathroom are uttered in the street but there's a word that spells controversy for parents in church and school like it's build an even bigger problem for the teenage mother listen to a dramatic sketch of a team who finds out she's pregnant or as a drama presented by the education through theater association kurt culbert producer the players include susie columns fernando arriola jr cw daniels sally todd jeff lombardo jacqueline at the black or bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum for linda i

can't seem to relax lately every time i start to do something that really just almost as best as i find don't be silly hats and that within a couple of months it's strange but i know what they mean anything or lose myself kind of activity to go someplace of all he just simply saying my mother missed us from the navy i can feel his vice often how you oh he's fine he's just the overlay here to have really been one long time that i was you know was counting we were denied their minds well you know my best friend i right that this is a private affair that's exactly what i'd call it a

fake very funny did you do that do you know well what if we did that on a no well i could say now to get on to get your show you know that things don't know how they felt i think that for while now says galston my son is three good question and i was just wondering if you can get pregnant if you do it standing out of what was somebody tell me that i can't believe it you still believe that you mean it's not sure i could

get my defective designs video well it's an understatement the dna that lets her prescription and you know sees big fan of here know that i'm like i said i think i might be pregnant from this book i read it i got all the symptoms and instead she just told me that standing out there's a problem here about anything you

know you dont know anything more about sex than i do especially to be taking someone else's birth control pills as a writing that's a great phrase i'll be fine fine is it you're really a friend of mine you would be asking me to resupply like having an abortion by some coke and a company wayne yeah and this is gregory oh

no no lessons just on the jazz oh it is a little bit of will i be at a lot of marco today the last week in the relatively new rules for the government ok that's been here for three months hey i can do that it's about time we tried it in new ways and i didn't mean it like that like oh you don't understand what you mean by that i mean on

your mind i think that the next time you need me alone you're young you're at mit where justice something wrong thing we're this is all about now when i go see a doctor don't think on the jazz great between the one i got some some good news for you what is it we go on a very long time well one of my own my test scores came back for peace corps had a chance to go to art acquired ability of doesn't change a thing between us all i know you thought we'd be together and sends it doesn't mean that we can keep in contact through letters and first this is the chance of a

lifetime and i can gas up and you must understand that we do so what i have to tell you it doesn't seem so important now promises of my own heart out of the way who knows ok jas the same facility no immediate word that's been there

isaac the media to occasionally do see gay couple lee gates elizabeth ii died at our our nato ally the birth rate is rising the birthrate among

unmarried american teenagers teenagers accounts for one out of five births in the united states the birthrate for adult women is going down but the rate for teenage girls is still going up in nineteen seventy five thirteen thousand babies were born under the age of fifty in nineteen seventy five eight percent two hundred eighty three thousand of all babies born in the united states are two young women under the age of seventy according to the national alliance concerned with school aged parents thirty three percent of all the abortions performed in the united states are performed on young women between the ages of fifteen and nineteen as far back as nineteen seventy four six hundred a thousand words were true teenagers six percent of all infants born to women under the age of fifteen during their first year

only seven out of the fifty states it's required human growth and development courses sex education in the schools pregnancy is the single greatest cause of school with all among teenage girls social pressures result in premature marriage isolation from peers and i divorced and suicide hour why has the teenage pregnancy reached epidemic proportions as administrator of both memorial hospital carol bryant talks about this topic i think there are a number of reasons number one the eu being that our young people have sex push to get them in a much earlier age than ever had before magazines movies television everybody goes to bed now becomes a pregnant in a lot of these instances and movies and number two we think they're young people today know have really good sex education and no lot that job

you know other generations didn't know and this is the farthest thing from the truth we are still seeing so many young people who have no idea whatsoever in the role realm of sex education number three are young people maturing at a younger age and are not able to make maybe even matured decisions that time have to be made me hip hip well it was live

person i really like so at ellis act and now when it's good enough and ofa on india's in canon cn and i know i'm no appetite now both hospital administrator carol bryant was asked what factors motivate teens to be sexually active all season and books and books and works written and then i think it's it's so individualize and i think this is one of the problems and that we have and which every race and has a state is trying to classify the teenage pregnancy gallego of song having my baby he topped the music charts and tried to capture pregnant experience but marlene chemical its lyrics with her story so they are sailing our cameras sixteen years old when i had them when they're pregnant and one am and amy and it was very difficult at

first worry its side it scares him after that because you don't know you know what you can do where you can go hi thank you ready to have a baby in a landslide it's a lot of responsibility as early as our time at first everything has worked out fine but there's so many you know grocers happens to and nobody cares you know beatty it's morning now and she's walking around she's very proud of the lie and that her father's day with us from the beginning he's we got married when they found out i was pregnant and we i got a house now in the two to them get aligned and the two of us get aligned and it's a risk

of allying or allowed and it's just it's really worked out well it's i hope that you know it works out as well for other people even though i know it doesn't it's you know so many girls are really in a jam where i wasn't you know i was very very lucky there's a lot of girls he had girlfriends of mine that their boyfriends or the father of the baby just decided larger problem take care of yourself but not mine dc my mother did tell me you know a lot about sex she explained to you know certain things that i think i learned from experience i was never really told that sex was

super cyprian geraghty i really i was told that i was a super dirty thing now is angie don't you know i don't have sex it does well what i found that i was praying i thought oh thank you know what i'm like ok now i know as scared in them i'd we didn't tell my parents require while many inter know about it because we were afraid that they would be money to an abortion so we waited till i was three months pregnant when i can hand question anymore swing one of the baby he and i actually tell my parents they were you know

my family's upset because of his social status here he didn't want everybody to know that he wanted this to be hush hush now until you can ruin my reputation here you know that's what he was saying and you know my mother was more or less how fault but the neighbors and you know some kids in school they you know and you know it's like i have some kind of a disease an hour very much and i love my baby and i know that girls to think of babies as quite a nuisance bag take your player really just heroic attempts together she's a lot of fun and she's now a fussy baby which helps glad because i can't stay in the navy

scrap some good mother had only babies crying pregnancy is more dangerous for teenagers and for older women are plenty of statistics that bear this out with no single factor can be blamed sin city three basic reasons physical immaturity poor nutrition and lack of early medical attention infant mortality of children mothers under fifteen is more than double the rate for children of those and was considered the ideal pregnancy age twenty to thirty four young mothers are apt to have either wall more short laborers and are more subject of complications such as top senior post pregnancy infection high blood pressure and amelia according to one study most young teenage mothers not only faced greater dangers to begin with and have the added disadvantage of later and poor medical attention the problem is

increasing because the number of births to mothers under sixteen is rising about thirty percent of the legitimate birth mother's seventeen and younger ha hospital administrator carol bryant was asked why teens don't use contraceptives are first of all because we're talking about very young people are talking about girls eleven twelve thirteen fourteen these girls are afraid to go to a doctor in some cases are the old family doctor is a thing of the past if there is a family doctor they're afraid to go to their doctor because they're afraid somebody to say something to their parents' alarm there are teenage clinics for such contraceptives but most young people don't think that pregnancy is going to happen to them another so as i say many old wives' tales what i can get pregnant if that happens the first time i can't get pregnant on sixteen or seventeen i can't get pregnant this little girl who just couldn't believe she was pregnant with her boyfriend promise as

long as they didn't kiss during the year and of course that they would get pregnant both hospitals carroll right talks about why many teens decide not to have an abortion when you're dealing with a much younger age your college girls might realize that they are are pregnant and media liam do something about it by your very young girls are not consistent with their menstrual periods and so they might go two or three or four months and not realize that they are pregnant or hope to i pray that they're not pregnant or just trying to simply to ignore the a situation entirely and so and then you're past the third month which the state says can be done out of the hospital and so then that's and that's a major problem right there ryan also expressed concern about teens who had an abortion and are pregnant

shortly afterwards carol bryant discussed the issue of whether poor teens have a higher birth rate in those better off financially she stated that the poor girl doesn't have access to abortion and the upper middle class girl does the problem of pregnancy is rampant whether it so one hundred thousand dollar or a six thousand are your family the difference brian sayers is that the live births are in the poorer families the life of pregnant teens their hopes and expectations are also know pamela and bernice and then we we're i won the fact that i was pretty high

i was don't give it up for dashing but i thought about it and i'm now i'm not given a funnel of action that keep it and day in his chair faced a responsibility keep it raises hours playing on keeping the sea at keeping know sid monday am i say a band mate will and it made one mistake like this won't keep inmates than it does like it carol bryant of build hospital was questioned on the subject of whether there is a dearth of sexual information in the country and there's a lack of crux actual information in this country i think there is all sorts of sexual information out there but it is you know it is either it surpassed them but i think the schools or parents are some parents say i want to teach my child about sex education i don't want anybody else doing it but then they put it off and they put it off and they put off you know they're always a little frayed they have their heart

her talk i'm so the schools are saying the parents want to do it we don't want to get involved so were in some cases the schools are not involved the church says well it should be done with a moral background and up but they're not too many churches who are having sex education classes for teenagers so it really is a major problem is the other aspect of some its what the kids know so much more today than they ever knew before so why do we need to teach him anything i'm at both where i am i even on the girls pregnant we have to go back to the beginning and start with our bodily functions and sex education classes and very simplified classes so that they do get the right information the salvation army both memorial hospital fifty forty northwest the road chicago is the only comprehensive self contained medical and residential facility for unwed mothers in the state of illinois and has been serving their needs

since eighty ninety five is sex education being talked almost feel large enough to be a benefit to young people dr robert all i'd taught sex education of sync waters grade school he was asked to respond to this question i teach sex education i told her grade school but i always taught after school informally with her press and analytics maybe you have to have our car sessions to satisfy the parents and satisfy the children that they know all there is necessary to know and sex education and a dangerous part of sex education is that it is really a religion because it is a bully it is a belief that by teaching sex education will improve our culture are consequently or ramming down the throats of art people a federally funded peculiarly funded religion

in the police go system dr robert doll eid feels that sex education is a single religion he stated that it should be taken out of the formal classroom and top on a one to one basis allied believes that the spiritual ization of sex and the value of personal affection or de emphasized sex education he feels should stress virginity and sacrificial of teens become pregnant that such early ages the department of children and family services sponsors the service to unmarried mothers spokesman tom teague was asked to explain the predicament they face with the service the situation is that we are not mandated by law to provide services to unmarried mothers others hospital expenses and living expenses until the child is delivered however as a voluntary program and from our general revenue funds we are

providing approximately three quarters of a million dollars worth of assistance each year or two unwed mothers there are very general criteria for a woman being accepted into this program about the only specific criterion that i can point out is that they must be under twenty one and that is that most of our referrals come to us from agencies private agencies which the girls go to first among the agencies in turn i ask just upon the services that they're going to provide these women that's what is known in our trade as reverse referrals and we provide to the limits of our ability the services and telephones run out and then we start providing services professionals

feel the teen pregnancy must have more parental guidance and better cooperation between parents and schools a stronger family unit is encouraged it is in the city i would've been more careful about his shower and use some form of contraceptives and that i would have no effect until ago american pregnant how to save it for later tang much thanks goes to tony decristofaro executive producer for assisting in the production of teenage pregnancy

from baby dolls to babies next week our program is entitled calling for more information or program suggestions contact wbez at six for juan forero a date is this special program was brought in by wbez the program was narrated by dick knoebel and we want it written and produced by kathie lee or do it