\n When she first approached her mentor in 2002, Marla Davis was
\n 12 years old and five months along with her first child. She
\n had not told a soul she was pregnant.\n <\/p>\n
\n \"I was scared,\" Davis said. \"I knew my grandmother would be
\n disappointed in me, and I knew she wouldn't expect that from
\n me.\"\n <\/p>\n
\n Jacquelyn Seldon, the mentor and now the executive director of
\n the Eastern Shore Pregnancy Center, took Davis under her wing.
\n The two went to the local health department and Seldon helped
\n Davis tell her grandmother and guardian, Nancy Stimis.\n <\/p>\n
\n \"It was really a shocker,\" Stimis said. \"I'd heard about girls
\n 15 and 16 years old getting pregnant, but Marla was only 12.
\n She was just a little kid.\"\n <\/p>\n
\n Abortion wasn't an option because Davis was too far along, so
\n she planned to give the baby up for adoption. Throughout her
\n pregnancy, Davis stayed in school and was ridiculed by other
\n students.\n <\/p>\n
\n \"Everybody was talking about me, and some of the teachers were
\n pregnant, which made me feel uncomfortable,\" she said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The day Davis was scheduled to meet a couple interested in
\n adopting her daughter, she went into labor. After Davis gave
\n birth to Alissa, she decided to raise the child on her own,
\n which proved to be no easy task. Stimis quit her job to stay
\n with the baby during the day, so Davis could keep going to
\n school.\n <\/p>\n
\n \"I had a lot of support, but I'm not going to say it was easy,\"
\n Davis said. \"It was hard getting up in the middle of the night
\n with the baby, and going to school the next day.\"\n <\/p>\n
\n Also, Davis had to rely on Stimis for financial support.\n <\/p>\n
\n \"We had our ups and downs,\" Stimis said. \"I was ready to retire
\n and any plans I had for my golden years had gone out the
\n window.\"\n <\/p>\n
\n It was important, however, that Davis stayed in school, Stimis
\n added.\n <\/p>\n
\n At 17, Davis gave birth to her second daughter, Aaliyah Holden.\n <\/p>\n
\n \"The best thing I could do was love her, help her, take care of
\n her and do whatever I could do for her,\" Stimis said. \"She
\n graduated from high school. She stood up and just did what she
\n had to do, and I'm really proud of her for that.\"\n <\/p>\n
\n Now 21, Davis is a freshman at the University of Maryland
\n Eastern Shore, majoring in exercise science. She holds a 3.5
\n GPA.\n <\/p>\n
\n Davis said her grandmother has been her rock, and she's certain
\n she could have never raised two children and finished school
\n without Stimis' support.\n <\/p>\n
\n \"If she wasn't there, I don't know what I would have done,\"
\n Davis said.\n <\/p>\n
\n ___\n <\/p>\n
\n Pregnancy Center\n <\/p>\n
\n It was around the time Davis had her first child that Seldon
\n became executive director at ESPC, a nonprofit, faith-based
\n organization that provides free services to women of all ages
\n facing an unplanned pregnancy.\n <\/p>\n
\n Seldon was also a teen mom, having her first child when she was
\n 17.\n <\/p>\n
\n \"I remember the turmoil and the shame; but I was blessed
\n because I had a family who really supported me and encouraged
\n me to continue my education,\" Seldon said. \"With everything
\n I've been blessed with, and everything I've been able to
\n accomplish, I really want to be able to give that to the young
\n women in my community and show them they can do this.\"\n <\/p>\n
\n ESPC assists roughly 400 women each year. In 2011, 27 percent
\n of those women were between the ages of 15 and 19.\n <\/p>\n
\n Among ESPC's free services include pregnancy tests, mentoring,
\n pregnancy and parenting classes and adoption education. The
\n center also offers the Bundles of Love incentive program, which
\n allows pregnant women to earn \"Mommy Bucks\" they can use to get
\n supplies like diapers, bottles, baby clothes and formula. Mommy
\n Bucks can be earned by keeping prenatal appointments, enrolling
\n in GED programs and attending parenting courses, among other
\n things.\n <\/p>\n
\n Assistance for teen parents is also available through programs
\n offered by the Wicomico County Health Department. The Babies
\n Born Healthy program provides pregnant women of all ages with
\n free pregnancy tests, multivitamins and portable cribs with
\n information on how to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.\n <\/p>\n
\n ___\n <\/p>\n
\n By the numbers\n <\/p>\n
\n According to Chavonda Carr, community health educator with
\n WCHD, a review of the 2009 Maryland Vital Statistics -- the
\n most recent available -- shows a declining trend in the teen
\n birth rate in Wicomico County. The birth rate for girls ages
\n 15-19 declined from 52.5 per 1,000 adolescents in 2000 to 44.7
\n in 2009. However, despite this decrease, the county birth rate
\n is still higher than the state birth rate -- 31.2 -- and the
\n county is the fourth highest out of 24 Maryland jurisdictions.\n <\/p>\n
\n ___\n <\/p>\n
\n Prevention\n <\/p>\n
\n According to Tracy Sahler, a spokeswoman for Wicomico County
\n Public Schools, teen pregnancy is taught within the Family Life
\n and Human Sexuality unit of the health curriculum in grades
\n eight and 10.\n <\/p>\n
\n Students in grade eight learn about fetal development and teen
\n pregnancy. Instructors assess the impact of unplanned pregnancy
\n on a teenager's life and outline the reasons why women get
\n pregnant -- by accident, by not using contraception, to keep a
\n partner and by not practicing abstinence.\n <\/p>\n
\n Students in grade 10 receive more in-depth information,
\n including a review of the process of human reproduction, how to
\n distinguish between healthy and unhealthy relationships and how
\n to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.\n <\/p>\n
\n Sahler would not provide the number of pregnant teens now
\n enrolled in Wicomico County schools and said, \"We wouldn't
\n release that kind of information if we had it.\"\n <\/p>\n
\n Carr teaches some courses at local schools, sometimes focusing
\n on abstinence and sometimes on forms of contraception.\n <\/p>\n
\n \"It's important for (the kids) to know this stuff because they
\n are growing up and being exposed to things earlier,\" she said.
\n \"However the parents are the primary sexuality educators, and
\n I'm just a supplement.\"\n <\/p>\n
\n Carr added parents who need advice on how talk to their
\n children about sex should contact the health department.\n <\/p>\n
\n Davis said she definitely doesn't regret having her daughters,
\n but she urges teenage girls to wait.\n <\/p>\n
\n \"It's so much harder when you have children,\" she said. \"Teens
\n should wait to have sex, because it's not worth it. If they are
\n having sex, they should use protection because a child is a big
\n responsibility.\"\n <\/p>\n
\n For teens who do get pregnant and decide to raise the child,
\n Davis said they should stay in school.\n <\/p>\n
\n \"Don't give up because it's not the end, it's just the
\n beginning,\" she said. \"It's not ideal, but if it happens, just
\n keep going.\"\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Continued here: When she first approached her mentor in 2002, Marla Davis was 12 years old and five months along with her first child. She had not told a soul she was pregnant. \"I was scared,\" Davis said Continue reading
\nGroups offer assistance to teenage mothers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"