Tara Kearsey
Northern News Services

Nunavut (Sep 30/02) - Teenage pregnancy rates in the territory are considered alarming by the assistant chief medical officer, but are widely accepted as a social norm.

"It concerns me. Very much so," said Dr. Geraldine Osbourne.

She said about 18.3 per cent of births at Baffin Regional Hospital are to teen mothers. That number does not include births in the communities.

Those rates are not unexpected, said Osbourne, because of a tendency for teens to have unprotected sex. High instances of sexually transmitted diseases, especially gonorrhea and chlamydia, are also more prevalent among teenagers.

Donna Posterski, acting head nurse in Qikiqtarjuaq, has seen countless pregnant teens during her time spent in Grise Fiord, Resolute Bay, Pond Inlet, Kimmirut, Cape Dorset, Gjoa Haven and Cambridge Bay over the past few years.

She said it's widely accepted as a social norm all across Nunavut.

"You see the kids coming to tournaments with their babies and they're sitting there participating. They breastfeed in between. It's acceptable and it's the norm," she said.

Posterski said she does not find that alarming, but said she has been exposed to it in the North for so long now that it no longer effects her.

"Maybe I have become immune to it, just like I used to be shocked with the custom adoptions," she said.

But Osbourne worries that pregnancy interferes with a teen's education and other life opportunities.

"There are consequences for the mother and child as well," she said.

In Nunavut, young mothers who do not believe they have the financial support to raise a child and often turn to custom adoption. The popularity of this practice is fairly unique to the territory, and quite common.

"I know of many teens who have their babies brought up by their mothers or other relatives," said Osbourne.

Posterski agreed that the overwhelming amount of family support and popularity of custom adoptions could be one reason why teenage pregnancy is so widely accepted.

Keeping teens informed

Nobody seems to know what the solution is. Posterski said community health nurses visit schools to provide birth control and sex education. Community health representatives also visit communities on a regular basis. Posters and information brochures are handed out and birth control is made readily available.

"It certainly is made known that birth control is available and it is free, they just have to take it.

"I can go out in the streets and haul everybody in and give them a shot of Depo (Provera) ... but that's not teaching them to be responsible and I refuse to do it."

Depo-Provera is a hormonal form of birth control which is injected into the hip every three months.

Posterski said she preaches about birth control all the time, but said she cannot force teens to act more responsibly.

"It becomes a problem to them as a culture and there's nothing I can do ... it has to come from them and I don't know how you change this attitude.

"It has to come from within the culture. It can't come from me, as a white person, saying 'You should do this and this and this.' The changes have to come from within their own," she said.