Teen pregnancy prevention topic at regional meeting

Photo provided A Sumter teen and United Way Diamonds Program participant holds the infant simulator known as "Baby Think It Over." Teens take home the doll, which simulates a real infant with cries throughout the day and night, as part of the program's age-appropriate abstinence teaching.

By ANNABELLE ROBERTSON
Item Staff Writer
arobertson@theitem.com

Every year, 3 million unplanned pregnancies take place in the United States. Of those, 1.3 million end in abortion — now the most common surgical procedure in the country. Many of those pregnancies are among teenagers. In fact, by the age of 20, one in seven women will have had an abortion.

But organizations like the United Way of Sumter, Lee and Clarendon are fighting those statistics with initiatives like the Diamond Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. An age-appropriate, abstinence-based, comprehensive pregnancy prevention program for teens, Diamonds is funded by a grant from the South Carolina Department of Social Services. Monday evening, local officials and concerned residents met with representatives to hear a presentation from the executive director of the SC Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, as part of a two-week educational road trip across the state.

"Our goal is to make sure that teen pregnancy stays on everyone's radar screen," said Forrest L. Alton. "We also want to let people know that they can help."

Between 1990 and 2004, teen pregnancy rates decreased by nearly 40 percent in S.C. But from 2004 to 2006, that rate jumped by 8 percent, with teen pregnancies rising from 9,543 to 10,604.

"We need to get back to the basics when it comes to presenting information about love, sex and relationships to young people," Alton said. "Research documents the effectiveness of an abstinence-first, age appropriate, comprehensive approach to sexuality education, which begins with a strong message of abstinence as the first and best choice, combined with information on condoms and contraception."

Programs that promote abstinence-only until marriage have not been found to be effective, he added. However, many programs are.

Like many, Melanie Dees, director of the Diamond Program, believes that prevention begins at home.

"We've found that kids who have caring adults in their lives tend to not get pregnant," she said. "Kids get pregnant when they're left unsupervised, typically after school, between 3 and 5 p.m., when parents are at work; during the summers and on graduation and prom nights. As parents, we have to be connected to our teens."

The meeting concluded with suggestions for talking with children about the issues.

"Conversations about love, sex and relationships need to begin and end at home," Alton said. "But at the same time, parents need help, and these conversations need to be supplemented with input from schools, faith communities and youth serving agencies like the Diamond Program."

Contact Staff Writer Annabelle Robertson at arobertson@theitem.com or (803) 774-1250.

TEEN SEXUAL INTERCOURSE IN SOUTH CAROLINA:
 52 percent of high school students have had sexual intercourse

 29 percent of students report having sex before 9th grade

 18 percent of high school students report having sexual intercourse with four or more partners

 37 percent of high school students did not use a condom to protect against pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections at last sexual encounter

TEEN PREGNANCY IN SOUTH CAROLINA:
 A teen gets pregnant every 55 minutes

 Two out of three teens who get pregnant will not finish high school

 27 percent who get pregnant have been pregnant before

 Annual cost of to Sumter County taxpaxers for teen child-bearing: $5,044,500

Information provided by Diamond Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program