Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Teen pregnancy declined more slowly in Indiana than it did in most other states between 1991 and 1996, according to a Kids Count special report.
The majority of teens who become parents struggle for the remainder of their lives, causing a cycle of hardship for the parent, child and community.
The Family and Consumer Sciences Department at Warsaw Community High School is providing an intervention and prevention curriculum for students to address the teen pregnancy problem.
In Ronna Kawsky's advanced child development class, students get "hands-on" experience of what it's like to care for an infant with the Baby Think It Over infant simulators.
Baby Think It Over Real Care Babies are the most realistic infant simulators currently available. These infant simulators require care on the part of the teen including feeding, burping, rocking and diapering. Activities of the infants are based on the schedules of infants ranging from 8 to 82 days old.
By programming an infant's age, the time a student will need to spend taking care of the child is determined. For example, an eight-day-old male infant will require a lot of attention between the hours of 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. An 82-day-old girl will need less time, but when she does need attention, she will need it for longer periods of time per hour.
Each student is assigned a baby at the beginning of the course. After parenting skills are discussed and practiced, each student takes their baby home for one weekend. Parenting skills discussed include car seat safety, holding a baby, feeding a baby and problems such as shaken baby syndrome, sudden infant death syndrome and fetal alcohol syndrome.
An ID key is attached to the student's wrist so that they will be the only one caring for the baby.
If the student works or has plans that would interfere, it must be discussed beforehand and a "day care" key will be provided. Students must make childcare arrangements for their baby, paying when necessary. After the weekend is over, the teacher uses a hand-held control unit to retrieve information about the simulation.
The information collected from the baby includes the number of minutes it cried, how many times it cried, if it was neglected, if it was happy, if its diaper was changed and if it was fed, among other information.
Students and their parents are required to complete a written evaluation of the experience. The computerized results are then compared with the evaluations and the student's daily diary of the simulation to come up with a grade for the student.
Not all the babies the students are given are healthy babies. A student may get a drug-addicted baby that simulates trembling, while another baby may suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome.
The healthy babies weigh approximately 7.5 pounds each. There are also Hispanic and African-American babies. Each baby makes appropriate sounds, whether belching, crying or drinking.
"The drinking is actually a real baby drinking from a bottle," said Kawsky. If the student feeds the baby correctly, the infant will coo.
While several of the students in Kawsky's class are taking the babies home this weekend, many of them already had their "weekend experience" with the babies.
When asked what her experience with a baby simulator was like, sophomore Misty Dittman said, "Don't ask! It was horrible! It wouldn't stop crying." She said it was an experience she will never forget and she learned that having kids at a young age is not for her.
Junior Tabitha Daniels said the best part of having the baby was when it wasn't crying and the worst part of the experience was when she didn't get any sleep because it kept crying. Her advice to any young person was to wait until they're old enough before taking on the responsibility of having a child. "Make sure you're ready to have a baby," she said.
Losing sleep because the baby kept crying was the worst part of Valerie Rager's experience with her simulator, too. She said she expected as much, but what she didn't expect was, "I didn't expect my mom to want to hold it that much." However, since it was only a "doll," she said if it was a real baby, she didn't think her mother would be so willing to hold it.
"It was fun at first," said Renee Burlage, sophomore, of her experience with the infant. "But then I didn't get any sleep and I was ready to bring it back."
The infant simulators, supplies for the infants and empathy belly pregnancy simulators for use in WCHS's child development courses was made possible from grant money.
K21 Foundation awarded $7,193 to the family and consumer sciences department for the purchase of additional infant and pregnancy simulators for their child development course. Other funds were provided by the Local Coordinating Council for a Drug Free Indiana and Combined Community Services.
This year, the department has 12 simulators and expect to have 24 for next year. "That way," said Kawsky, "every student will have their own (baby) during class time."
