COLLEGE STATION, Texas — According to Aggieland Pregnancy Outreach Center, a baby is born to a teen mom in Brazos County every two days.
20% of these births are repeat births, and this nonprofit is looking to spread awareness of the resources they offer.
Although the teen pregnancy rate is lower in Brazos County than the national average, they still see the consequences of a lack of support for young mothers.
“This is probably the most troubling statistic is that children born to young single moms under 18 have the twice the incidents of child abuse and neglect than children born to older moms, and that’s just not acceptable,” described Found of Aggieland Pregnancy Outreach, Kim Schams.
For 25 years this non-profit has been helping mothers maneuver their way through teen pregnancy.
Their teen parent programs currently service approximately 200 teen moms, dads and their children.
Schams explained one of the group sessions they offer, "We have a special program for teen parents called the mama club, and the real men, is for the teen dads, and that’s a program every Tuesday night and we welcome these teen moms, we feed them a full meal, we have fun and games and we calm things down with parenting talk, where they’re gonna learn new parenting skills, new ways to respond to the stressors of being a mom.”
There are several different factors such as poverty, generational patterns of teen pregnancy and lack of education that cause young mothers to give up on having a successful life of their own, but this non-profit is giving a new generation hope.
“It is clear in the research that the more young women are surrounded by mentors caring adults the more successful they are academically their children thrive more and that’s what we can offer them here at Aggieland Preganacy Outreach,” Schams said.
They are looking for monetary donations this giving season to help keep their programs going and to extend their reach to teen parents all over Brazos County.
Click here to visit the Aggieland Pregnancy Outreach Center website.
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