WHO WILL HELP AN UNDER - AGE MOTHER?
A gravity of the situation with teenager girls pregnancy is confirmed by the data cited in the State Report of the Ministry of Social Welfare of Russia for 1994. According to these data there are 335 thousands abortions for 30 thousands deliveries among under-age girls in Russia. V.I.Brutman shows that those juvenile girls who have preserved their pregnancy, sometimes foolishly, in many cases abandon their babies and join thus the army of social orphans. The author of the previous article investigates in details a psychological condition of a juvenile woman when she made a decision to abandon her child. What to do: to keep pregnancy or to have abortion performed? To take responsibility for a child or shift it off on to an orphanage? That is the choice to be done by a girl who came to know she is pregnant. And this choice is to be done by the most of them alone or under pressure of public opinion and her own family being braught upon immature person.
Existing services of social welfare, public health, education do not give support to young pregnant girls of under-age mothers. A public philanthropic organisation "Service of Assistnance for Under-age Women GOLUBA" tries to solve this problem. For two years this organisation, including a psychologist, a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer and a social worker, gives consultations and advices to teenager girls assisting them to make a choice: to be a mother or not to be. They consult their parents as well. In maternity home under the isolation hospital number 6 the specialists of GOLUBA investigate abnormal maternal behaviour, help to change to the better a psychological condition of a juvenile woman and so make her take her own choice more consciously.
Obviously a small charity organisation's activity can not cover all the needies: a broad system of help is needed for this. The personnel of the Service of Assistance for Under-age Women has developed a project of a specialized reabilitation institution including a consulting center and an asylum for juvenile pregnant women and mothers with children. According to the project a consulting center should have a public consultation room, a psychiatrist consulting room and a legal aid service. A school for juvenile parents (as well as their parents) is also provided. Asylum should have a training and productive unit where under-age mothers could gain mental equilibrium, a feeling of their necessity to other people and first of all to their own child, through the mediation of doing something beautiful, aesthetically enjoyable. Courses of music-therapy are also provided for clients of asylum where they would play music and sing in chorus. The authors of the project suppose that music is not only a necessary part, but a pivot, a bearing construction of the social reabilitation program.
If you want to support this project, to take consultations, to tell your problems and ideas, you should get in touch with Marianna Vronskaya, a chairperson of the board of administration of GOLUBA. Phones: 369-0346, 261-6250.
Since undesirable pregnancy might be a risk for a woman's health, her right of safety means a right of effective contraception. Thera are so many contraceptives in drug-stores today that it is difficult to understand what is what and to make the right choice. Ideally you go through a complete examination and after this a doctor would prescribe a drug most appropriate for you. In reality examination is nothing more than a usual inspection and after this a doctor prescribes for you a drug known to him, considering that a level of his knowledge is not usually very high. That is why you should know it yourself and beforehand about existing contraceptive methods, their action, contraindications and side effects. Today we shall inform you about a new high-efficient hormonal contraceptive of long-term action called NORPLANT. The following information is given from the "Manual for Providing Services in the Field of Family Planning" developed by the International Federation of Family Planning. Translation into Russian and publication of the Manual have been done by the Russian Association "Family Planning".

BACK TO THE CONTENT

BACK HOME