School-based support for urban adolescent mothers

Introduction: The purpose of this research was to examine infant birth weights and high school completion rates for two cohorts of adolescent mothers attending an urban school-based program, the Polly T. McCabe Center. Results: The uncidence of low birth weight infants born to students was 4% in study I and 13.6% in study II. High school continuation/completion rates for study I were 79% at 3 years after leaving the program and 80% for study II at 1 year after leaving the program. Discussion: The young mothers and infants appear to have benefitted from the McCabe Center's intervention. Findings of the study suggest that continued implementation of supportive school-based programs similar to the McCabe Center may help prevent lower birth weight infants born to adolescent mothers and may help decrease the high school drop-out rate among this population.