[Rifilanna]

Originally Posted by ommom

Maternal mortality is quite high at a rate of 564 deaths per 1000 live births in mothers less than 15 years of age. "

Can you post the link.

A 50% mortality rate is astounding, and you would think that termination might well be the best option. Not the right time to die.

That said could you look at the fact that a woman finishing college is not a girl of 13. That many birth mothers are not teenagers at all. That most birth mothers are middle class, not living in poverty; and that most birth mothers are not drug addicts.

Birth mothers and teen mothers, poverty and birth mothers, addicts and birth mothers are not the same things. These are the core social prejucides, against both teen and birth moms.

[hunny0404]

Thanks, Susan. Don't know if it would have made a difference, but just wish someone had told me, you know?

Hugs,
Susanne

[hunny0404]

Originally Posted by ommom

I am not proud of what I did, at the time it was what I thought was best for me. I learned my lesson and vowed it will never happen again.

ommom,
We share this--I am not proud of what I did, either. I considered abortion and knew that it wasn't the right choice for me, but don't judge others who make this choice. However, adoption was also not the right choice for me or my child; I thought it was best for both of us at the time because I was too overwhelmed with the obstacles and the fear to have perspective and to know what I was really choosing. I thought, "If I can just get through this pregnancy, I'll be okay." And as I lived my life, it looked okay, but it never really was...

We do the best we can with what we have, and what we know at the time the decision has to be made. And sometimes we find later that we have to learn to forgive ourselves for what we've done, even those things that sometimes feel like they might be "unforgivable." It sounds like your decision, made so many years ago when you felt you had so few choices, still causes you such great pain and that you might be experiencing a sense of loss similar to that which many birth mothers experience when they relinquish their children.

Originally Posted by ommom

Now that I am in a position to "influence" people, I try to educate them so they don't have to go what I went through.

I can't speak for others, but I participate in this community of sharing to help me find my voice and express my own sense of deep loss and grief, and to learn from others who have experienced the same so that I'm not so isolated, and can find a way to move forward in my healing process. But I also share my story in the hope that someone who might be able to benefit from it has the opportunity to hear another voice, maybe the voice that is missing in their decision-making process, maybe the voice that might help another frightened young woman who felt she had no other choice find it possible to write a different story for herself and her child, if that is what is best for the two of them.

I will be thinking of you as you continue to process what must have been a truly painful and life-altering experience for you. It sounds like you DO know what I meant when I said that it's never, EVER over...

I wish you peace,
Susanne

[RavenSong]

Originally Posted by ommom

"Fifty per cent of pregnant adolescents are younger than 16 years, some are as young as 11 or 12 years of age. About 50% of teenage pregnancy progress to delivery.

Mortality and morbidity tend to be greater among the young pregnant adolescents. Maternal mortality is quite high at a rate of 564 deaths per 1000 live births in mothers less than 15 years of age.

When I first read this, I thought you had misquoted the original article. So I "googled" the exact phrase about maternal mortality and found the website you're quoting. The editor obviously made an error on this statistic. Maternal mortality rates are measured in terms of "per 100,000 live births", not "per 1,000 live births". The editor should have caught his/her error during proofreading or the "fact check" stage. (Trust me, I know what I'm talking about ~ I'm a medical editor for a major peer-reviewed medical journal.) The maternal mortality rate of 564 deaths per 100,000 live births is typical for certain developing nations, such as the sub-Saharan areas of Africa, but certainly not here in the United States.

I always am leery of newspapers that do not cite their sources, especially in a case like this that supposedly revolves around some "study". The site you found this article in is a Phillipino newspaper, and I can't even tell if this "study" was performed in the Phillipines, the United States, or a developing country.

I do know that there has been substantial research in the medical outcomes of early adolescent childbearing, both in terms of maternal mortality and infant mortality, within the United States. I spent a couple hours looking over the abstracts of many of the American studies in peer-reviewed journals last night at PubMed, a digital archive operated by the National Institutes of Health. The major problem encountered in pregnancies within this age group is low birthweight of the infant. Although researchers are unclear about the cause, most of them agree that it probably is related to the tendency of young adolescents to not gain much weight during the pregnancy, itself. For births within the United States, the maternal mortality rate for this age group is not statistically higher than for girls between the ages of 16 and 19.

If you would like to read any of the professional literature for yourself, you can go to PubMed Central Homepage and put "early adolescent pregnancy" or "early adolescent childbirth" into the search box. Or you can use this link: Defining Early Adolescent Childbearing and then click on the individual links in the "References" section.

[bromanchik]

Thanks Raven Song. Excellent information.