A look at teen pregnancy

Susana Dominguez looked at the kitchen floor in her southside Odessa home recently and reviewed the red liquid spewed across the tile floor.

Susana, 17, peeked over at her 20-pound son, Jaciel, who gripped one of his hands on a small, clear Kool-Aid bottle.

The 1-year-old boy threw the bottle on the floor and let out a giggle as a large four-tooth smile lit up his tiny face.

"You like to throw things on the floor," Susana said, picking up the bottle. "You like to make a mess."

The former Career Center student picked up her son, whom she conceived at age 15, and walked toward the sink, running water in preparation for his bath.

"I still love you," she said, knocking him a little kiss on the cheek.

Susana, a student at the Teen Parent Center, isn't the only teenager in the Ector County Independent School District or the county with a child to care for, and she isn't the only one who's said they should have finished school before having a baby.

"I want to encourage girls not to get pregnant at a young age," Susana said. "It is hard. It's not easy ... You can't go out, you can't do what you used to do."

PREVENTION

R. Moss Hampton, associate professor and regional chair of the Obstetrics and Gynecology department at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine at the Permian Basin, hopes to find ways to help teen mothers curb the possibilities of having multiple children while a teenager.

Hampton said many teens don't consistently use birth control or other forms of contraception and often end up with one or more children.

He said about 50 percent of teens will discontinue birth control within the second to third cycle of use, noting many girls don't like the possible weight gain or irregular bleeding with pills, shots or other birth control methods.

But something needs to be done to prevent teen pregnancies and recurring pregnancies, he said.

"We are seeing 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds with three or four kids," he said. "To me, that's a real travesty."

Hampton received a $10,000 grant in November 2007 from the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women's Health at Tech's Health Sciences Center to conduct a three- to four-year study centered on preventing pregnancies for up to 200 teenagers.

"Our goal is to try and get them to obtain a high school education," Hampton said, noting that typically, teen moms don't receive diplomas.

Hampton said the grant's awaiting Institute Review Board approval before the study begins.

Through the grant, he said, the hope is many of the teens may start using birth control they don't have to remember to take every day - things like Implanon, a single-rod implanted in the skin and recently marketed as being effective for up to three years.

Another goal of the grant, he said, is to prevent recurring pregnancies in teens.

"That's what we're going to be looking at," he said. "It's a huge problem, and it's one that I think needs to be discussed."

Of the reported 2,312 live births in Ector County in 2004, 171 were by mothers younger than 18 years old.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy reported the Texas teen birth rate in 2004 to be 62.6 per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19.

The campaign reported the national rate in 2004 was 41.1 per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19.

Also in 2004, Texas ranked 50th, or the highest of all states, in teen pregnancy, according to the campaign's website, www.teenpregnancy.org.

And teens don't learn about sex at school, Hampton said - they learn from their friends at young ages and need to be educated on how to protect themselves.

Teaching only abstinence to teenagers isn't sufficient, he said, noting data shows no increase in a teen's sexual activity with education.

"To go out there and preach abstinence and that's going to be enough - I think is just foolish," Hampton said. "Because I think there's a group of people out there who want to have sex.

"Unfortunately, there's a group of teenagers out there who want to be pregnant," he said.

IS TEEN PREGNANCY A PROBLEM?

Some teenagers copy what their own parents did as far as having babies at an early age whether they meant to map their lives or not, Hampton said.

In some cultures, he said, teen pregnancy is more accepted than others.

"You kind of do what your parents did," he said.

Susana's mother, Marisol Dominguez said she was disappointed in Susana for getting pregnant as a teen. Marisol Dominguez said she knew the challenges Susana would face as a teen mother because she also started a family as a teenager.

"I didn't want her to suffer the same things - the same problems," Marisol Dominguez, 36, said, noting a teen mother doesn't get to hang out with friends because they have to take care of their baby.

Some teens may not mirror their parents' lives, but they may have lower life expectations for themselves, especially if they live in poverty, Hampton said, noting a teenager's parents may not have gone to college or had steady careers.

"That's the mindset of many of the people in the poverty cycle - I don't care what race you are," Hampton said.

The poverty level in Ector County is quite high, he said, noting the Texas Department of State Health Services reported 26.8 percent of people 17 and younger lived in poverty in Ector County in 2004. The state saw 22.7 percent at the same level.

In addition, the hormonal changes in teenagers and cultural changes also play roles in a teen's sexual activity.

If a teenager has parental support and their interest, the individual is less likely to become sexually active and practice abstinence, he said.

"The most influential people are the parents," Hampton said.

But other people are also influential to teenagers like teachers or coaches, who also care about teens and their livelihoods.

Coach Tracey Borchardt at Odessa High said when one of her female athletes tells her she's pregnant, it usually ends with the teen sitting out from sports for a while or abandoning athletics all together.

"I'm not the happy parent who says, ‘Oh, it's going to be OK. Oh, we're gonna have a baby shower,' " she said.

Instead, she doesn't have much sympathy for the teenage athletes, and she's usually disappointed because she said many of her girls start with "so much potential for the future."

"They blow it by doing this," she said.

ECISD recently started mandatory exercises to measure students' body fat through 20-meter pacer or aerobic tests and about three girls per session tell the coaches they can't complete the test cause they're pregnant, she said.

"It's very frustrating on my part," Borchardt said, adding that many of the girls start in OHS athletics in ninth grade.

She encourages many of the girls to attend the Teen Parent Center, which offers parenting classes and day care for students in a recently revamped self-paced learning environment.

TPC science teacher Carina Hernandez said she relates with her students because she was a teen mother herself who attended AIM High School.

"If it wasn't for AIM, I would not have graduated from school," said Hernandez, who graduated in 1995.

Hernandez, who got pregnant at 15, said the center helped her focus on school and care for her child.

Hernandez, 32, had two children by the time she graduated from high school and now has three kids.

She said that in the Hispanic culture, women are proud to be mothers and housewives, but at times she said it's challenging to be a teen mom.

"I just didn't think I could do it," she said.

STILL TEENAGERS

Odessa High junior Deana Martinez, 17, said she didn't plan to have a baby while still in high school, but it won't ruin her life.

Deana, a volleyball player at OHS, made varsity during the 2007-'08 school year and said she wasn't sure if she'd be able to still pursue a scholarship for the sport.

"I still have college in mind, but I don't know if it's a for-sure thing like it was," Deana said. 

Her pregnancy was just bad timing, she said, noting some girls at school are believed to have gotten pregnant deliberately, and she's unfortunately been lumped in with that bunch.

Deana's friends have helped her through her pregnancy by being by her side and helping with her baby showers.

Since getting pregnant, Deana chose to live with her family instead of with her 19-year-old boyfriend, OHS graduate Jyrick Sutton.

That's a big step, Deana said, noting the couple has no set plans to marry or live together.

Deana gave birth May 21 to a 6-pound-11-ounce boy, Lavon Tyrell Sutton.

Even though she'd never held a newborn, she said maternal instincts kick in when she cares for her son.

Since giving birth, Deana cares for her son around the clock, noting she gets bored at times being around the house.

Odessa High graduate Amy Saulsbury, who attended the Teen Parent Center, said she didn't like being pregnant.

"I'm looking forward to not being pregnant anymore," she said after her final child birthing class at Medical Center Hospital recently. Amy gave birth to her daughter, Zoie, on April 12.

The 17-year-old, who got pregnant at 16 and transferred to TPC, said she suffered from all kinds of pains and not being able to sleep during her pregnancy.

And oh, the stretch marks, she said.

"It's just miserable," she said. "There's nothing good about it really."

Amy's mom, Jill Saulsbury, 42, said not only did Amy have to deal with those things but she's still a teenager and wants to do things with friends.

Jill Saulsbury said she still expected Amy to call her when she was going to be out late with friends or if she changed her plans to go out.

Amy said she was surprised to conceive Zoie.

"I didn't expect it," she said.

Another teen mother, Sandy Baiza, 18, lives with her boyfriend, 18-year-old Steven Velasco, and their son Isaiah, who was born Nov. 9, 2007.

The couple said they also didn't expect Baiza to get pregnant even though she'd had a miscarriage prior to getting pregnant a second time.

"I was in shock," Baiza said. "I didn't know I was pregnant until I was three months along."

Baiza said she didn't use birth control before Isaiah was born because she'd heard stories from relatives and friends who got pregnant even with birth control use.

"You can't trust them pills," Baiza said, noting the couple uses condoms since having Isaiah to prevent another pregnancy.

The couple wants a better life for their son, and Steven said he especially wants to be there for his son.

"My dad just left me," Velasco said. "I want him to know who his dad is."

Baiza had an idea that she was going to wait to have children, and now that she has one, she said she's realizing having a child's expensive.

The couple pays rent, has to buy clothes for Isaiah and themselves and feed all three mouths. It all ends up being quite a bit of money, she said, noting Medicaid helps with some of the formula costs and medical check-ups for her son.

The couple depends on Velasco's income from various oilfield-related jobs.

Teens forego much of the hallmarks of their teenage years to care for a baby.

Jill Saulsbury, Amy's mom, said she was sad when she first heard of Amy's pregnancy because she knows about the challenges ahead and all the things Amy will miss out on.

"There's a lot of sacrifices she's made," Jill Saulsbury said.

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