High risk pregnancies: teenagers, poverty, and drug abuse

The real problem is not teenage pregnancy alone, but the destructive combination of single motherhood, poverty, and drug abuse. The consequences of being a poor, inner-city, single mother with an expensive drug habit may include prostitution, drug dealing, dependency upon welfare and/or extra support from an already overwhelmed family system, and neglected children. Almost inevitably, the children exhibit cognitive deficits and behavioral problems, may turn to drugs at a young age, and may have an early involvement with the criminal justice system. To design effective prevention programs it is essential to understand the myriad complex risk factors that affect the lives of these vulnerable young women. As the first stage in a larger study of motivation and readiness for change and the development of self-protective health practices, interview data were collected from 30 participants. Sixteen were residents and staff who had graduated from a drug treatment program and 14 were undergraduate and graduate students, all of whom had been pregnant as teenagers. The results yielded a surprising commonality of experiences for both groups that included childhood physical and sexual abuse, coercive adolescent sexual relationships, early first sexual contact, early first pregnancies (often as a function of rape or incest), abortions, and chemical dependency, especially during pregnancy.