Adolescent pregnancy: an intervention challenge

Even in the best of circumstances, pregnancy is a time of emotional upheaval. This is especially true for pregnant adolescents who are also attempting to adjust to pubertal status and to establish an identity independent from their family. Although research has focused on the etiology of teenage pregnancy, relatively few interventions consider the developmental obstacles encountered when treating pregnant teenagers. In particular, adolescents are cognitively unprepared to predict long-term outcomes, a skill essential for confronting the challenges of pregnancy. One new intervention, known as previewing, seeks to overcome this deficit. Previewing encourages expectant teenage mothers to represent future scenarios with the infant as a means of predicting and rehearsing adaptive outcomes.