Lifelike Doll May Actually Encourage Teen Pregnancies
Lifelike Doll May Actually Encourage Teen Pregnancies
Still, "teen pregnancy is on the decline and that's the good news," she says. "Teens are delaying sex or using [birth control] more so the rate is going down but we still have a much higher rate than other developed countries. We can't get complacent because there is a new crop of 13-year-old girls every year."
"It's really important to note that Baby Think It Over is a tiny piece of teen pregnancy prevention programs," says Monica Roberts, director of education and information at the New York-based Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). "The idea of having teens care for an egg or a flower to learn what it is like to be a parent has been around for a long time," she tells WebMD.
But "there is no single approach to markedly reduce teen pregnancy in this country," she says.
Calling the Baby Think It Over experiment "an interesting approach," Tina Hoff, director of public health and information at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in Menlo Park, Calif., points out that young kids don't usually make a conscious decision to become pregnant; it is usually unintentional.
Lifelike Doll May Actually Encourage Teen Pregnancies
Still, "teen pregnancy is on the decline and that's the good news," she says. "Teens are delaying sex or using [birth control] more so the rate is going down but we still have a much higher rate than other developed countries. We can't get complacent because there is a new crop of 13-year-old girls every year."
"It's really important to note that Baby Think It Over is a tiny piece of teen pregnancy prevention programs," says Monica Roberts, director of education and information at the New York-based Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). "The idea of having teens care for an egg or a flower to learn what it is like to be a parent has been around for a long time," she tells WebMD.
But "there is no single approach to markedly reduce teen pregnancy in this country," she says.
Calling the Baby Think It Over experiment "an interesting approach," Tina Hoff, director of public health and information at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in Menlo Park, Calif., points out that young kids don't usually make a conscious decision to become pregnant; it is usually unintentional.
Vital Information:
- Taking care of a lifelike doll to discourage teen pregnancy may actually have the opposite effect, according to a new study.
- The doll manufacturer says that the study only focused on the doll, and not the whole pregnancy prevention program, which has been shown to be successful in other studies.
- Parental attitudes towards teen pregnancy, information about sexual health, and developing future-oriented goals that would be in opposition to having a baby are other factors that may be effective in preventing teen-age pregnancy, experts say.
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