Overcoming isolation
It's a Friday night and your mates are getting ready for a big night out. Top of the Pops is on the telly and mobile phones buzz with calls and text messages in order to finalise plans for the evening ahead. Outside your window, you can hear the clatter of heels as the girls you went to school with run to catch the bus into town.
You, meanwhile, are sitting at home in your tracky pants while your baby cries in his bouncy chair as he struggles with wind. You haven't had time to wash your hair for three days and the baby needs his nappy changing. Not to mention the bottles that need sterilising, the formula that needs mixing and the clothes that need sorting...
You don't need us to tell you how tough it can be to be a young mum these days. Not only can it be difficult to mix with your old mates like you used to, but somehow you just don't fit in with all the thirtysomething mums who gossip together at playgroup either. Then there's the stigma the media attaches to 'gym slip' mums and the fact that your family don't approve. It's no wonder a teen mum can feel a bit isolated and overwhelmed at times.
A stressful time
Londoner Trina Pursell, 20, certainly recognises those feelings. She gave birth to her son Christopher when she was 16. 'When I discovered I was pregnant at 16 it was a terrible shock but I never considered not keeping my baby,' she says. 'However, my parents were horrified. They didn't like my boyfriend Chris anyway, so when I told them I was four months' pregnant they went mad. My dad chucked me out of home so I went to stay with Chris and his mum, but eventually my mum came to accept the idea and I moved back home.
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