Zoey Duncan
Although it has been declining for the past decade, the teen pregnancy rate here is double that of the province.
“It’s a problem,” said Lee-Ann Nalezyty, an epidemiologist with the local Northwestern Health Unit office.
“We would like to see the number go down, absolutely.
“More so from the perspective of wanting to encourage the young girls to complete their education and move forward in their lives, and delay pregnancy until they’re older or finished high school,” she explained.
In 2009, the most recent year that numbers were made available, some 57 out of every 1,000 girls aged 15-19 in the Kenora and Rainy River districts became pregnant. By contrast, the average teen pregnancy rate provincially was 29 pregnancies per 1,000 females in 2007. The teen birthrate here is also higher than the provincial average with one-third of pregnant teens in the NWHU opting for abortion compared to half provincially.
Nalezyty said privacy legislation meant she could not release teen pregnancy information specific to Fort Frances. But those who serve on the frontlines say they’re not surprised to hear they work in a hotbed of teen pregnancy.
The pregnancy rates are “staggering,” said Kerry Zub, Aboriginal prenatal nutrition co-ordinator at the United Native Friendship Centre (UNFC) here. Her program includes prenatal health, teen prenatal classes, and breastfeeding support, as well as recreational, educational, and cultural support for parents.
“I find [the statistics] a little shocking, maybe it’s just because I didn’t realize it before until I started my job, but I found it a little appalling.”
Here in town, possible factors behind the higher pregnancy rate are murky at best.
“We used to say when we were kids that there’s nothing to do around here,” Zub admitted.
“But that’s the excuse for everything: for drinking, for drugs.”
“It doesn’t seem to be lack of knowledge that’s the problem,” noted Traci Lockman, co-ordinator of the Aboriginal Healthy Babies program for the UNFC.
Lockman visits “high-risk” parents in their homes to provide support and education. They include teen mothers, those on welfare or in subsidized housing, and those who have quit high school.
“A huge problem that we have here, whether they’re a teen mom or an older mom, is that I have very few clients on birth control,” Lockman noted.
“Every visit I go on, I have a birth control briefcase. It’s a little dated, but it shows all of the different forms and it’s just become a joke.
“If I could figure that one out, we’d have solved that problem and they’d all be on birth control,” she stressed.
Both the UNFC and the health unit facilitate access to various forms of birth control. The health unit operates a clinic at Fort Frances High School on Monday mornings, where students can find a method that works for them.
The UNFC, meanwhile, provides condoms, pregnancy tests and lots of documentation on the dangers of unprotected sex.
The safer-sex message may not be hitting home, though. Unprotected sex is a concern across the health unit’s catchment area, as it is home to 774 reported cases of chlamydia per 100,000 residents (as of 2010).
That’s a 34 percent increase over 2009 and the highest rate in a province where the average is 236 cases per 100,000 (as of 2009).
While refusal to use it, or inability to access contraceptives, may result in pregnancy, Lockman said the reasons for a teen pregnancy may be more complex than that.
She felt some women consider a baby a way to get out of a bad home situation, thinking they will be better off living on “Ontario Works” funds.
“They’re surprised at the amount. I mean, they don’t get much money,” Lockman noted.
Gillian Lunny, manager of the sexual health program at the health unit office here, agreed that some women who get pregnant at a young age may need additional support.
“In the sexual health clinics, we do a lot of counseling with young girls and women of all ages that are in unhealthy relationships,” she explained.
“Sometimes it can be a sign of an abusive relationship when girls get pregnant early, either because they don’t feel they have a choice to get on birth control, or it’s something their partner wants.”
For other young women, a teen pregnancy may be a reaction to the impending future, rather than anything happening in the present.
“I think, personally, part of the issue for girls is it’s pretty scary to go away,” said Rev. Barb Miller of Knox United Church here.
“There isn’t a lot of education available [nearby],” she noted. “So in some cases, the safer thing to do is to have a baby, and I think that does play into our numbers because you live a very sheltered life in this district.”
Rev. Miller added that for women without post-secondary education, employment opportunities are very limited.
“It’s pretty scary,” she warned. “So if you’re not ready to make that jump, but you don’t want to just seem like you’re going to stay at home and baby-sit the neighbour’s kids, then I think sometimes they neglect to make choices to prevent them from getting pregnant.”
After-pregnancy support
Even young women who make an effort to prevent pregnancy can end up pregnant. Rev. Miller is well aware of that—her 18-year-old daughter, Tegan, gave birth March 9.
She had been meticulously using oral contraceptives for more than a year when she became pregnant.
“So I was like, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do?’” Tegan recalled. “I am that fabulous one percent that it doesn’t work on.”
Although Tegan had graduated high school and was in a stable relationship, the pregnancy meant her college plans had to be shelved indefinitely, and that she and her boyfriend suddenly were facing a mountainous financial burden.
Tegan said she felt well cared for by the health unit nurses, but that they didn’t have any literature for her that was specific to being a teen.
“They just thought, regular 25-year-old or whatever pregnant,” she noted.
Her mother echoed that sentiment.
“There was no extra support because she’s a teen,” Rev. Miller said. “I think because she was a teen, her nurse-practitioners were very intentional in their care of her.
“But as far as additional resources available, or say a support group or a chance to explore what other young girls are experiencing with a peer, it certainly wasn’t there.
“When you think about how much more prevalent teenage pregnancy is here, it is surprising that there aren’t more structured resources available,” Rev. Miller added.
At the UNFC, Lockman continues to wonder why teen mothers fail to use her resources. The Aboriginal Healthy Babies program can help struggling parents with transportation costs, meal planning preparation, and learning how to care for their child.
The UNFC also has weekly “parents’ time-out” events, during which children participate in activities while the parents can take care of errands and other responsibilities. All the programs are open to aboriginal and non-aboriginal clients.
Lockman suggested some teens avoid the centre because they want to protect their reputation amongst their friends.
“When they come here, they’re not in a group of their peers,” she explained. “We see it as they are, because it’s other moms, but I’ve heard them make remarks about, ‘Oh, they’re just old ladies over there.’
“I thought we had what it would take them to get them in here.”
Lockman said her own experience revealed how necessary it is for young parents to have family support. Her daughter gave birth at 15 following a family decision to keep the baby. Before she worked there, Lockman and her daughter used the prenatal program at UNFC.
After graduating from college, her daughter continues to raise her child. “But without the support from our family, I truly don’t think it would have been a success story,” Lockman admitted.
As one of very few local programs that caters to teen moms, Lockman said she wishes more of them would see the value the UNFC can provide.
Only one teen is currently using their programs, and she comes with her mother. And Lockman said her own daughter would not have accessed assistance without her encouragement.
“Probably 80 to 90 percent of the moms that we have coming here, their first baby was born when they were in their teens. A lot of teen moms, they don’t look for these kinds of supports,” she remarked, noting her clients didn’t come to the UNFC until their second baby was born.
It seems for some teen moms, being a teenager trumps motherhood.
“They just basically want to hang out with their friends,” Lockman said.
