Gloucester stymied by rise in teen pregnancy

GLOUCESTER - Kim Daly sensed something was amiss in this seaside community during the first month of school last fall after several girls came to the school health clinic she runs at Gloucester High School asking for pregnancy tests.

Each time, Daly stood in her lab with her eyes closed, little white wand in hand waiting for the results to appear. When they were negative, she breathed a sigh of relief. When they were positive, she braced herself for the unpredictable emotional response that comes with telling a teenager she's going to be a mother. Some girls broke down in tears. Others broke into smiles. One exclaimed, "Sweet!"

By October, Daly had delivered positive results to as many girls as she typically does in an average year. By May, she knew of 17 girls who were pregnant, more than four times the number the 1,162-student school had the year before.

The spike has shocked and baffled education and health officials here and reignited a fierce debate about contraception in schools. But most alarming to education and health officials is the fact that a significant portion of the pregnancies are occurring in girls 16 and younger and that some seem to be intentional.

"More students are coming in and asking about pregnancy testing," said the city's public health director, Jack Vondras. "What's odd is that some of them are disappointed because they're not getting pregnant."

As they struggle to address the problem, education and health officials say they are at a loss for an explanation of the increase. A predominantly white community with a graduation rate 5 percentage points higher than the state average and a poverty rate for its students 3 percentage points lower than the state average, the town seems to have an economic advantage not usually associated with teen pregnancy, officials say.

"Like many here, we're hoping it's a blip," said Sue Todd, executive director of Pathways for Young Families Initiative, which provides day care and parenting classes for young families and teenagers in Gloucester.

Some say the city's geographic and social isolation contributes to the problem. Set on the southeastern tip of Cape Ann, the city is separated from the rest of Massachusetts by the Annisquam River. Gloucester is also a tightknit community with strong Catholic roots, and twice in the last 30 years women's clinics failed to take root. Girls who want to get contraception confidentially must go to a clinic across the river in Beverly.

"We had a free-standing clinic, but people were afraid their cars would be recognized parked outside," said Lianne Cook, executive director of Health Quarters, which runs the Beverly reproductive health clinic.

As the city's trademark fishing industry has been decimated, young people may be lacking direction, others said. Teenagers raised to expect and want a life there have been forced to find something else.

"This is a community that is very much struggling," Daly said. "Some probably see this as something to do. . . . Having a baby gives them an identity."

Data released last year by the Centers for Disease Control showed that the national teen pregnancy rate rose in 2006 for the first time in 15 years. In Massachusetts, the rate has continued to decline, but data released by the state in March showed that in 2006 a number of working-class communities saw an increase in teen birth rates. In Gloucester, the number of teenagers giving birth jumped from 10 in 2005 to 19 in 2006, a number that includes all teenage girls, not just the ones attending high school.

Teenagers who give birth are less likely to finish high school and more likely to experience complications during pregnancy, health officials say. Their children are more likely to be born premature, to grow up in poverty, and to be incarcerated or to become teenage parents themselves.

"This is a community problem," Superintendent Christopher Farmer told the Gloucester School Committee last week.

Yet in an interview on May 30, Farmer said he has heard relatively little from parents or concerned community members. Though the local newspaper has run numerous stories and editorials about the issue, there have been just two letters to the editor published about it since March. Overall, the community seems to be ambivalent, Daly said. "There isn't necessarily shock and outrage when they see it," she said.

For Gloucester native Lori Mitchell, 46, whose daughter dropped out of school at 16 to have a baby, there are worse ways to end up than a teenage mother.

"They could be junkies or prostitutes," she said. "You try to protect them as much as you can, but it's up to them to do the right thing."

Sandy Lakeman said she breathed a sigh of relief when her 19-year-old daughter graduated from high school and went to college in Florida. A single mother, she encouraged her two daughters to play sports and get part-time jobs in order to keep them out of trouble.

"I've had to be a waitress and a bartender my whole life and I've struggled," said the Gloucester native. "I don't want my kids to struggle."

Tania deLuzuriaga can be reached at deluzuriaga@globe.com.