Teenage mothers

Adolescent mothers experience many factors that affect their ability to securely attach to their infants and are therefore considered a high-risk population. In addition, infants of adolescent mothers are at an increased risk of developing insecure attachment. FirstPlay® Therapy Infant Storytelling-Massage is an attachment-based, parent–infant adjunctive play therapy model founded on the theoretical underpinning of attachment theory.
The current study implemented a one-time intervention with an adolescent mother population in a group home setting. A pretest/posttest design was utilized to measure the impact of FirstPlay® Therapy on the variables of an adolescent mother’s levels of maternal attachment and comfort with physical touch. Participants in this study (N = 5) were adolescent mothers ages 18–21 years old, who were recruited from four maternity group homes in two counties in South Florida. Five adolescent mothers completed the FirstPlay® Therapy for pre and posttest data. No significant differences were found in the areas of maternal attachment and predisposition to touch before and 2 weeks after the intervention. There were some significant relationships found among the demographic variables specific to an adolescent mother’s history of employment status and her child welfare history as well as the age of the mother and the age of her infant. In addition, at posttest, a significant relationship was found between the sex of the infant and the total score on the PCAQ. Although no statistically significant findings were presented, recommendations for further research include extending this intervention to a broader population of adolescent mothers across a variety of settings to focus on early infant-attachment relationships.

One out of every ten women aged 15-19 in the United States becomes pregnant each year, yet few studies have been conducted to determine what is important to the teenage mother. The purpose of this study is to develop a structural description of the lived experience of being a teenage mother. Six teenage mothers who attended a teen parent program in a local high school were interviewed. Using Giorgi's method of interpretation for phenomenological studies, a general description of the lived experience of being a teenage mother was developed. Actual quotations from the interviews are utilized to illustrate the themes which emerged and possible resolutions and implications for further nursing research discussed.