would you like a free condom? they’re boysenberry.

“McCann Erickson is rolling out a new spot for Dentyne that compares gum with condoms. Using the tagline “Practice safe breath,” the commercial shows a trio of men in need of protection from halitosis, lest it inhibit freaky time. One is about to get into it was a comely blonde in the backseat, another is nervously buying protection in a drugstore, and a third wakes his roommate late at night because he’s got a guest.” -AdFreak

According to the CDC almost half of all pregnancies are unintended. In order to prevent teen pregnancy, teens need to know how to prevent it themselves. They need to be given the tools and education. If abstinence (which is the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy) is the only thing taught then what about the kids who choose not to stay abstinent? Should they become a teen pregnancy statistic because they did not know how to prevent pregnancy?

For a list of all of the types of birth control available click here.

Planned Parenthood outlines the goals of contraceptive education:

As a result of Contraceptive Education, participants will:

• Understand the evolution of birth control
• Identify how various methods of contraception work to prevent pregnancy
• Evaluate the effectiveness of each method of contraception, including abstinence
• Describe how each method works and their advantages and disadvantages
• Be able to explain the importance of sexual responsibility and the barriers that may hinder healthy decision-making

Planned Parenthood also provides information about birth control - more specifically in regards to teens.

In an After Show interview by the girls featured on Teen Mom they discuss the importance of contraception and using it every time you have sex.

flaunt that baby bump

There is a lot of publicity for girls who get pregnant. It is seen more and more in movies and on TV – what message is it sending to youth today?

Juno’s review by the New York Times says it best (boldness added):

Juno” also shares with “Knocked Up” an underlying theme, a message that is not anti-abortion but rather pro-adulthood. It follows its heroine — and by the end she has earned that title — on a twisty path toward responsibility and greater self-understanding.

This is the course followed by most coming-of-age stories, though not many are so daring in their treatment of teenage pregnancy, which this film flirts with presenting not just as bearable but attractive.

Then there’s the 2007 story about Jamie Lynn Spears:

In schools and shopping malls and around the dining room table, the subject of teenage pregnancy and sex was suddenly and uncomfortably in the air as mothers and daughters and fathers, too, talked about — or tried not to talk about — the pregnancy of 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears, who plays the perfect, well-liked and, it is understood, virginal teenage girl on “Zoey 101” on Nickelodeon.

Teen pregnancy is all over the media and it is more often than not portrayed as glamorous or attractive. Even the girls on Teen Mom have become celebrities for having gotten pregnant as teens. So… what exactly is being taught?

I discovered a foundation called The Candie’s Foundation whose mission is to educate America’s youth about the devastating consequences of teen pregnancy. We do this through celebrity-driven campaigns, which reach millions of teens each year with cutting-edge, entertaining ads that dramatically expose the realities of teen parenthood. By tapping into the dialogue that celebrities have with teens, we speak to them as peers and help shape the social script around teen parenthood. Our aim is to raise awareness, stimulate discussion, and motivate teens to protect themselves against pregnancy.

Now as great as this photo and campaign are… Hilary Duff has been in a scandalous TV show called Gossip Girl. So, what are teens going to pay more attention to? Hilary having sex on TV or this one ad that says having a baby sucks? What about contraceptive use? Is sex just not connected to getting pregnant?

hey big-puffy-version-of-Junebug

Today’s Topic: The Pregnancy Pact. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Maybe you haven’t. (reported June 2008)

Lifetime made a movie about the Pregnancy Pact and that was the first time I had even heard about it since I was out of the… news world for a year and a half. Time Magazine put out most of the details about this crazy situation (Although the pact was never confirmed):

As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies — more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year.

All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together.

More from Time:

The girls who made the pregnancy pact — some of whom, according to Sullivan, reacted to the news that they were expecting with high fives and plans for baby showers — declined to be interviewed. So did their parents. But Amanda Ireland, who graduated from Gloucester High on June 8, thinks she knows why these girls wanted to get pregnant. Ireland, 18, gave birth her freshman year and says some of her now pregnant schoolmates regularly approached her in the hall, remarking how lucky she was to have a baby. “They’re so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally,” Ireland says. “I try to explain it’s hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m.”

Is pregnancy becoming glamorous rather than being taken seriously? Are babies being thought of as an accessory more than a responsibility? If so, how can we change this perception? What can be done in order to really help teen girls realize and know that a baby isn’t a toy – it’s a LIFE they are bringing into the world?

U.S. Teen Pregnancy Rate Up After 10-Year Decline

BOOM!

Vanessa: Your parents are probably wondering where you are.

Juno: Nah. I mean I’m already pregnant so what other kind of shenanigans can I get into?

The U.S. teen pregnancy rate rose in 2006 for the first time in more than a decade.

In an article published on January 26, 2010 by Fox News we learn that teen pregnancy is STILL an issue:

“It’s interesting to note that this flattening out of the rate and the increase in the rate is happening at the same time that we’ve seen substantial increases in funding for abstinence-only programs,” Finer, Guttmacher’s director for domestic research, said.

“We do know that when we saw the big decline in the ’90s, that a lot of that decline was due to improved contraceptive use among teens.”

The abstinence-only programs, backed by many social conservatives who oppose the teaching of contraception methods to teenagers in U.S. schools, received about $1.3 billion in federal funds since the late 1990s.

The Obama administration’s 2010 budget eliminated spending for abstinence-only, shifting funds to pregnancy prevention education that include abstinence along with “medically accurate and age-appropriate” information.

Another article from USA Today says the same, but also mentions the rise in abortion rates:

Guttmacher’s analysis shows a 4% increase in the teen birth rate and a 1% rise in abortion rates, based on federal statistics and Guttmacher’s abortion research.

By the way, Guttmacher Institute is a non-profit group that studies reproductive and sexual health.

SO. There are the facts.

i’m actually off sex right now, thanks.

Alright, I am going to talk about something super fun. Abstinence. Of course when you think of abstinence you think only of not having sex before marriage. But what about those who already have had a baby or have already engaged in sexual activity? They STILL can choose abstinence. According to Planned Parenthood: Any woman or man can abstain from sex play. Many do so at various times in their lives. Some choose to abstain from sex play for long periods in their lives.

Abstinence: voluntary forbearance especially from indulgence of an appetite or craving.

Planned Parenthood gives us a quick look at abstinence:

Abstinence at a Glance

• A behavior that prevents pregnancy
• Prevents sexually transmitted infection
• Safe, easy, and convenient

The pro’s of NOT having sex

Special Advantages for Teens
Sexual relationships present risks. Abstinence is a very good way to postpone taking those risks until you are better able to handle them.

Women who abstain until their 20s — and who have fewer partners in their lifetimes — may have certain health advantages over women who do not. They are less likely to get STDs. Because they are less likely to get an STD, they are also less likely to become infertile or develop cervical cancer.

Who knew that there were special advantages just for teens? I had no idea! There are also other questions about abstinence answered on the same Planned Parenthood page.

The con’s of HAVING sex:

According to the CDC:

Many Young People Experience Negative Sexual Health Outcomes
The data presented in this report indicate that many young people in the United States engage in sexual risk behaviors and experience negative reproductive health outcomes. For example, approximately

• 745,000 pregnancies occurred in U.S. females under age 20 during 2004.
• 20,000 adolescents and young adults aged 10–24 years were living with HIV or AIDS at the end of 2006.
• 1 million adolescents and young adults aged 10–24 years were reported to have chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis in 2006.
• Nearly a quarter of females aged 15–19 years and 45% of those aged 20–24 years had a human papillomavirus (HPV) infection during 2003–2004.
• 100,000 females aged 10–24 years visited a hospital emergency department for a nonfatal sexual assault injury during 2004–2006.

Theses are outcomes that can be avoided if a teen chooses to abstain from sexual activity until marriage.

The CDC also did a survey asking youth if they had EVER had sexual intercourse and 47.8% said yes.

True Love Waits is an organization that challenges teenagers and college students to commit to staying abstinent.

The Five Commitments of True Love Waits

• To God: Matthew 22:37 - “Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’”
• To Yourself: Matthew 22:39 - “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
• To Family: Philippians 4:5 - “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.”
• To Friends: John 15:13 - “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
• To Future Mate and Children: 2 Timothy 2:22 - “Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”

You can click here to sign a commitment card to stay abstinent and join more than 1.5 million people who have made the True Love Waits pledge in the past 10 years. That is a lot of people who recognize the importance of keeping sexual activity meaningful.

they were talking about it in health class, how pregnancy, it can often lead to… an infant.

Option 3: Parenthood. More often than not – SINGLE parenthood. I am going to link you to Planned Parenthood again to answer some questions like:

How Can I Know If Parenting Is the Right Option for Me?

What Are Some of the Advantages and Disadvantages of Parenting?

Who Can Help Me Decide?

How Soon Do I Have to Decide?

Can I Meet a Child’s Needs?

What Support Will I Need If I Have a Child?

As I have already mentioned there is a show on MTV called Teen Mom. The idea behind this show is to show teenagers what it is really like to be a teen mother. There is a video of one girl in particular named Maci that shares the difficulty she has with the father (Ryan) of her son Bentley.

According to a report by the Robin Hood Foundation, only a third of teen mothers receive a high school diploma, suggesting that they will have fewer skills to secure employment. Teen fathers are likely to finish fewer years of school than older fathers do, as well as less likely to hold a steady job or earn enough to support their new family. Additionally, their children are more likely to perform poorly in school, while their daughters have a 22 percent greater risk of becoming teen mothers themselves.

According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy at least 75 percent of unmarried teen mothers end up going on welfare within 5 years of their first child’s birth. The children of unmarried teen mothers are more likely to drop out of high school and far more likely to live in poverty.

Teen parenting is not easy, but it can be done. I found another organization that promotes teen sexual health called Sex, Etc. Sex, Etc. is part of the Teen-to-Teen Sexuality Education Project developed by Answer, a national organization dedicated to providing and promoting comprehensive sexuality education to young people and the adults who teach them. They also answer many questions a teen might have when deciding whether or not they want to be a parent.

juno: they have ads for parents? leah: yeah! desperately seeking spawn.

Okay, so we’ve talked about abortion. So now, we will focus on adoption. My little sister chose to place her baby for adoption and it was a really good decision for her. It wasn’t an easy choice. 9 months of sacrificing your body and then to place your baby for adoption is an act of love – rarely, if ever, do I believe that it is an act of selfishness.

Planned Parenthood is a good resource when deciding whether or not to choose adoption. They provide answers to the questions that most people have if they are curious about adoption. The Child Welfare site also has information about adoption that may be helpful.

This is a picture of my little sister and her daughter Olivia who was adopted by Val on the right. My sister was lucky to find a great family who wanted her to be a part of Olivia’s life. Open adoptions are becoming more common as the modes of communication in the world are advancing. Val lives across the country with her husband and son – so Stefanie receives updates via e-mail, facebook, and cell phone pictures.

Olivia is now 6 months old and as cute as ever. Stefanie has never regretted her decision to place Olivia for adoption. She knows it was the best thing since she could not provide a family for Olivia.

Adoption is really close to my heart, because my niece was placed for adoption. It’s not about some random person I know that got pregnant and placed their child for adoption. I remember being in the hospital when the adoptive mother’s sister came in and held my niece and I was overwhelmed with sadness knowing that Olivia wasn’t going to be my niece. I felt a SMALL amount of what every birth mother feels as she places her child into the arms of another family. And that is how I know that adoption is an act of LOVE: loving the baby enough to know he/she deserves better.

There is even a foundation called On Your Feet for birth parents whose aim is to aid birthparents in becoming self-sufficient and provide support.

all babies want to get borned! all babies want to get borned!

So, there are 3 basic options that are available when a teenager finds out she is pregnant. (not listed in any specific order)

1. Keep the baby

2. Place the baby for Adoption

3. Abort the pregnancy

Today, I will focus on the third. Abortion. The more often than not taboo idea for any woman who discovers she is pregnant. Wow, never look up abortion under the images tab on google – the images are AWFUL and disturbing. I have often heard the argument that we spend so much money keeping people alive, but there are those who do not give a second thought to killing a baby before they have the ability to live a life. Pretty intense stuff. This is a very sensitive subject and I am not a supporter of abortion in any way. I do, however, believe there are some circumstances in which an abortion may be necessary: if the baby is a threat to the life of the mother or if the baby was conceived in violent or derogatory fashion (ie: rape or incest).

According to Advocates for Youth: Each year, 750,000 to 850,000 teenage women in the United States experience pregnancy Moreover, 74 to 95 percent of these pregnancies are unintended. In 1999, the most recent year for which data are available, over 148,000 teenage pregnancies ended in abortion. Around the world, women of reproductive age have some 50 million abortions, 20 million under unsafe conditions that result in high rates of injury and death.

I have yet to touch on the subject of contraception, but it will soon be mentioned. Having a baby is a consequence of having sex. NOT a punishment. A consequence. What a girl chooses to do once that pregnancy test reads positive will also bear consequences. Abortion is one that I believe would always be regretted. The way I am writing this may make me seem harsh and I am not trying to give that impression. It is ridiculous to view a child as a punishment.

now to emotionally manipulate you, i give you this video:

Planned Parenthood is a good resource when deciding what to do, here is a link that explains the myths associated with abortion.

i thought you were the kind of girl who knew when to say when

Oh hey. It’s been a while. I heard something recently that I thought was interesting. There was a study done in 2008 about the connection between teens’ likelihood to get pregnant and their television show preferences/viewing habits.

As it turns out, teens who watch shows that have more sexual content are more likely to actually engage in the act. I am going to share an excerpt from the article : (bold and italics added)

“Dr Chandra and her colleagues surveyed more than 2,000 adolescents aged between 12 and 17 from 2001 to 2004 to gather information about a variety of behavioural and demographic factors, including television viewing habits. They then analysed the sexual content of 23 shows in the 2000-2001 season, and calculated how often the teenagers saw characters kissing, touching, having sex, and discussing past or future sexual activity.

The shows included Sex in the City and Friends, dramas, comedies, reality shows and animated programmes on broadcast and cable networks. Sitcoms had the highest sexual content.

Among the 718 youths who reported being sexually active during the study, the likelihood of getting pregnant or getting someone else pregnant increased steadily with the amount of sexual content they watched, the researchers found.

About 25 percent of those who watched the most were involved in a pregnancy, compared with about 12 percent of those who watched the least. The researchers said that they took into account other factors such as being from a one-parent family, wanting to have a baby and engaging in other risky behaviours.”

Wow. What we watch on TV affects us more than we think. Those things that we see everyday affect our behaviors.

That ain’t no Etch A Sketch. This is one doodle that can’t be undid, Homeskillet.

The Real Juno is inspired by my little sister who puts a name to the term Teen Pregnancy for me and those close to me. Now when you first think of someone who gets pregnant as a teenager you might think, “Wow, that was stupid – she must not be very smart. That will never happen to me or anyone I know.” Truth is, Stefanie is not stupid, but she definitely did not think it was something that she would have to experience. She found out she was pregnant after her boyfriend had broken up with her. Luckily for Stefanie she already had her high school diploma and to some might not be classified as a teen pregnancy because she was 18 at the time.

Like many other girls who find out they are pregnant – Stefanie jumped between feelings of fear and excitement. She had hopes that her being pregnant would get the father of the baby to get back with her, but that was a dream that did not come true. Her journey, as she likes to call it, was a rough one filled with hard choices and heartache. I will use a lot of her story to help other girls understand what it is really like and not what TV or movies portrays teen pregnancy to be.

The Center of Disease Control and Prevention is a credible source for recent pregnancy statistics in the United States: In 2006, there were 435,436 births to mothers aged 15–19 years in the United States, a birth rate of 41.9 per 1,000 women in this age group. The majority, nearly two thirds among mothers under age 18 and more than half among mothers aged 18–19 years, of teen births are unintended—they occurred sooner than desired or were not wanted at any time. U.S. teen pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates are considerably higher than most other developed countries.

Teen pregnancy has recently hit the MTV scene with shows like Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant. These shows are jam packed with real stories of real girls who face the issues of teen pregnancy head on. I will look more into these stories as I address the different issues specifically.