The initial goal of the interventions, he said, is to help pregnant adolescents avoid postpartum depression and psychosis. The longer-term goal is to allow them to continue in their adolescence as normally as possible after the birth, while developing a healthy attachment to the child with the support of their families.
"Are they going to keep listening to Lady Gaga? If you have an 18-month-old baby, how do you behave? We’ve really worked on recuperating adolescence for these girls to make sure that they do listen to Lady Gaga," he said. "We try to make sure that if they’re going to have the baby, to know what they want to do – go back to school, go to a friend’s 15th birthday party [Quinceañera], or have one themselves.
"We think it over together."
After the birth, infants and their young mothers are observed and evaluated interacting in-office, where such details as the distance the child crawls away from the mother is measured as a way of gauging healthy attachments. The girls, who are at high risk of having second babies while still in their teenage years, need to be followed up for years.
Neither Dr. Chaskel nor Dr. Rondón reported disclosures.