ABSTRACT
Support and Personal Growth Strategies Regina K. Tenney M. Jenise Comer
INTRODUCTION: CURRENT STATUS OF EARLY PREGNANCY AND PARENTHOOD
The phenomenon of children having children has been a longstanding national problem in this country. Recent estimates of the problem reveal that approximately one in ten adolescent females in the United States becomes pregnant. Currently, more than 800,000 to 1 million teenage girls under the age of nineteen become pregnant each year, and approximately 500,000 give birth annually (U.S. Census Bureau, 1986; Beebe, 1997). An overwhelming majority of single teen parents, 93 percent, remain at home with their babies. Moreover, approximately 30,000 are under the age of 15, and 80 percent are unmarried at the time of pregnancy (Wallis et al., 1985). African-American adolescent females represent a disproportionate number of adolescent parents (U.S. Census Bureau, 1992).
