The reality of being a teen mum
By Sue Mitchell
Producer on It's My Story


The girls enjoy motherhood
With teenage girls now choosing pregnancy as a "career option", according to a leading charity, three young mothers talk about how they dealt with the experience.

Britain has the highest number of teenage pregnancies in Europe and they cost the country about £63m a year.

Many young girls even see having a baby as a better option than a low-paid "dead-end" job, recent research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggests.

But with 40,000 teenagers giving birth in Britain every year what is the reality of having a baby so young? What challenges do such young mothers face and how do they cope?

Housewife

Zoe and Jenny were just 14 when they got pregnant and Olivia 15. The three girls met at Cyfle a special educational unit in Wrexham, north Wales, for young mothers. Cyfle provides support so they can continue with their education, while looking after their babies.

The girls are transferred to the unit in the later stages of pregnancy and usually return two weeks after the birth. An on-site creche is provided so the girls can bring their babies with them. They are usually taught at the unit for a term, before returning to their normal schools.


Zoe's twin helped her cover up her pregnancy
Zoe, from Wrexham, managed to conceal her pregnancy until just two weeks before giving birth with the help of her identical twin, Gemma. At school her sister stepped into her place when it came to sports lessons and at home the youngsters managed to fool their parents and younger sister.

"I didn't want anyone to force me into an abortion and I felt sorry for my Mum - she always tries so hard and I didn't want to disappoint her by telling her I was pregnant," she says.

"I was scared though - we were both scared. The longer you go on without saying anything the harder it is to tell someone."

Choices

Zoe's mother, Collette, finally realised what was happening during a family holiday in Spain, when it became impossible for Zoe to conceal her pregnancy with baggy clothes. Just two weeks later she gave birth to Georgia and went to Cyfle to study for her GCSEs.

The unit was set up by a former secondary school teacher, Teresa Foster Evans, who was concerned that girls getting pregnant whilst still at school are often forced to leave without finishing their education.

Olivia also attended the unit. She had been at a private girls school in Chester when, on the brink of starting her GCSE year, she told her mother that she needed to pop into a supermarket to take a pregnancy test. She came out of the store in tears and announced that the test, which she'd taken in the shop's lavatory, was positive.


Jenny wanted to be a mother and housewife
"In some ways I wasn't surprised," says her mother, Anne Malcolm. "I was shocked of course and a lot of things crossed my mind but there was no question of not keeping the baby. Some people suggested a termination - I wasn't one of them."

Olivia has no regrets about having her daughter Ayeasha at 15. "She's the best thing that ever happened to me," she says. "If I had to do the same again I would. I don't have contact with Ayeasha's Dad but I have help from my parents and there's nothing else I wanted to do with my life.

"I don't want a career - I want to bring my little girl up and I still go out and have fun."

'Better lives'

Teenage pregnancy rates in north Wales are particularly worrying. The most common scenario is for the daughters of teenage mothers to go on and repeat the same pattern as they grow up. This was the case for the third of the girls, Jenny, who set out to get pregnant when she was just 14.

"I wanted a baby, I wanted to be a housewife and I thought it would bring me and my boyfriend, Danny, closer together," she says. "He was 17 at the time and he wasn't saying I had to use contraception. But once I got pregnant he wasn't happy then and told me to get rid of it."

Jenny, however, chose to go ahead with the pregnancy and now lives alone with two-year-old Holly. She's supported by her own mother, Sara, who knows what it's like to bring up a baby young and on your own.


Foster Evans: 'Education is key'
"It's not what I would have wanted for her, she knows how hard it was for me and how poor we were but still she went ahead and did it," she says. "She so wanted it to work and she thought she'd be with Danny for the rest of her life, even though I knew it would never work out."

Teresa Foster Evans believes a large part of the work going on at Cyfle has to centre around helping these teenage mothers lead more fulfilling lives so their own children can be given more choices as they grow up.

"Education is the key to it," she says. "If we can get them through their GCSEs and help them finish their schooling we can give them and their children far better lives."