PREGNANCY 2008

LYNN - The birthrate among teenage girls in Lynn is twice the state average, according to public health records.

The alarm was sounded Thursday by the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, which released statistics showing that the 2006 teen birth rate in Lynn was 47.7 births per 1,000 teenage girls aged 15-19, while the state rate was 21.3 births per 1,000 girls.

Among the reasons cited for the dramatic increase: Failure of the city's public school system to provide adequate sex education; an absence of programs that would include parents in the awareness process; and swelling ranks of students with lackluster academic performance and fuzzy future plans, who see little reason not to give birth.

Patricia Quinn, executive director of the teen pregnancy alliance, said students in middle school and early high school need community support as well as access to sexuality information and contraceptives.

"Young people need community support for three elements to prevent pregnancy," she said. "They need access to information, access to contraceptives for sexually-active youth, and perception of opportunity. Massachusetts is not successfully achieving the first two elements."

Quinn credited Girls, Inc. in Lynn and, specifically, Lena Crowley, director of the organization's middle school programs, for running an intervention program that seeks to education middle school-age girls from becoming pregnant.

The program has targeted girls with siblings who are already teenage parents. Through intensive case management, the program attempts to keep these girls from following the same path while introducing them to a wider array of future options.

"I think the most important thing is to create opportunities for these girls," said Quinn. "That doesn't mean there aren't issues like giving support to parents, and having the school provide sexuality education. But not enough can be said for teaching these girls that there is a lot more to look forward to."

Quinn asserted that Lynn lacks adequate sex education in its schools.

"I'm pretty certain there's not much sexual education going on in the Lynn school system. There is tremendous support for it, but not at the administrative level," she said, noting that any change would likely be a decision made by the superintendent of schools. "But even if you had excellent sex education and health services, you still need the most important element, and that's to give these kids a reason to delay sexual activity due to future plans. Only then are you going to reduce it."

Quinn said school success rates directly correlate to teen birth rates. Where academic success is high, teen birth rates tend to be low, and vice versa. "Kids who aren't doing well are the ones more likely to get pregnant," she said. "They often have no big plan for what to do next."

Parents, too, need support.

"Parents universally ask for it because many are uncomfortable talking with their kids about sexual issues," she said.

Quinn said immigration and cultural values can play a role in spiking the teen birth rate, and acknowledged that Lynn has experienced some demographic shifting in recent years. Nonetheless, those are relatively minor factors, she said.

"State funds for health education were eliminated in 2002, and since then we have seen a decrease in health education offerings, especially in the middle schools. Consider that by ninth grade, 30 percent of Massachusetts high school students have already engaged in sex," she said.