Social and emotional support and delay of subsequent pregnancy

Since 1994, the Illinois Subsequent Pregnancy Program (ISPP) has helped more than 3000 first-time adolescent mothers in Illinois to successfully delay a second pregnancy. Intensive home visiting coupled with group training and support has yielded consistent outcomes across diverse populations of adolescents. Only 2-4% of ISPP participants (ages 14-18) have a second pregnancy, 75-80% remain in and/or graduate from school each year and more than 90% use contraception correctly at year-end. At program entry, ISPP staff identify: a) persons who provide significant social/emotional support to the participant, and b) the level of social/emotional support provided. The present analysis is an examination of the role support by the participant's mother and the father of the participant's baby plays on school status and contraceptive use. In multivariate models controlling for participant's ethnicity, age at intake, baby's age at intake, intensity of program services and contraception use at intake, support from the father of the baby at intake has a positive influence on the participant's contraception use at the end of the program year, and support from the participant's mother has a positive influence on the participant's school status at the end of the program year. Multivariate analysis is used to further examine the relationship between social/emotional support and participant characteristics at intake, use of program services, and level of outcomes. Our goal is to understand the factors that might impede the success, i.e. program retention, school success and contraception use, of community-based program models for adolescent mothers.