OxfordPress.com

site web

FRANKLIN — Bryttani, then a sophomore at Franklin High School, remembers the day — and her friends' reaction — when she learned of her pregnancy.

"They all huddled around me and they were all excited," Bryttani said Thursday, March 12, during a phone interview. "But for me, it was like, 'Oh my God. I can't believe I did this. I can't believe I let my family down.'"

While those feelings may be unique, being a pregnant teen is becoming more common.

Recently released statistics show teen pregnancy is on the rise, reversing a 14-year decline from 1991 to 2005.

In Ohio, the teen pregnancy rate rose 3 percent in 2006 after declining 36 percent over the previous 14 years. The states with the highest increases were Alaska (19 percent), Mississippi (13 percent) and Montana (13 percent). Washington, D.C., saw the largest overall change in teen pregnancy rates with a 24 percent decline.

Some experts are blaming the overall increase on federal programs that fund abstinence-only education, censoring any talk of birth-control options.

Generally, the design of sex-education curricula has been left up to individual school boards.

It's true of Ohio and it's true in Alaska, where there is no requirement that the subject even be taught. Anchorage — the state's largest school district — emphasizes abstinence, with a program called "Abstinence Plus."

Paula Long teaches a class at Middletown High School for pregnant students. Long said she stresses prenatal care, parenting skills and encourages girls to remain in school and graduate.

Candice Keller, executive director of the Community Pregnancy Center in Middletown, wasn't surprised by the rising numbers of pregnancies. She sees it every day.

She said 1,441 teens visited the center on Central Avenue in 2007, a number that rose to 1,809 last year. Sixty percent of those teens tested positive for pregnancy, she said.

The No. 1 response, she said, from teens in the center: "I don't know how this happened."

That shows, Keller said, that "sex education does not work. The culture is winning and I hate to say that. That culture seeps into the psyche of the kids."

When asked about abstinence, Keller called it "100 percent effective."

Last year, Keller said, 15 girls 15 and under visited the center, 10 of whom were pregnant. When Keller was 15, she played with Barbie dolls.

"It's a whole new world and not in a good way," she said. "I've seen a lot of pregnant teens in here and it's a sad, sad situation to see."

Becki Brenner, CEO of Planned Parenthood's Southwest Ohio Region, says blaming abstinence-only education for the increase "would be wonderful if it were just that simple."

"Unfortunately it's not," she said. "I think it's one key aspect — abstinence-only is not working. But our teens are much more sophisticated; they're inundated with sexual messages from TV, music, movies — we do them a disservice when we do not provide them with all the information they need to keep them safe and healthy."

She compared arming teens with an abstinent-only education to placing a loaded gun in a gymnasium of teens.

"You can't just tell them not to shoot the gun," she said. "You have to tell if they want to shoot the gun, there are safety classes for them. It's our responsibility to give them all the information."

Keller called teen pregnancy "a reality check for these girls."

She said 70 percent of pregnant teens don't graduate from high school and they face more challenging financial hurdles.

"They're only thinking in the moment," Keller said.

Later, she said, television "glories sex" and she said the boy "always stick around on TV."

Meanwhile, Bryttani, now 18, had her baby daughter, EmmaLynn, in June and said she plans to marry her fiance and the baby's father, Anthony, this summer.

Her advice to other teens contemplating sex?

"Wait," she said without hesitating, "because it's hard. What I've gone through is hard, I'll tell you that."

Still, she calls her daughter "a gift" from God.

"He chose for me to have a baby," she said. "She was a gift that I really needed."

Staff writer Laura Dempsey contributed to this report.