SOME ASPECTS OF PEDIATRIC ILLEGITIMACY

This study compares 149 white unmarried mothers from an average cross-section of the population of Western Ontario with 99 married mothers from a similar age group and population. There were no statistically significant differences in home background, educational achievement and occupational level of the parents, dating history, or sexual experience in either group. This was not a promiscuous unwed group-most of those involved, and all of those in the pediatric group, had only one partner. Very few used contraception, although almost all were aware of it. There was only rarely purposefulness toward pregnancy, and in the majority of cases it was regarded as an error. As our interest is mainly in pediatric illegitimacy, a concept is proposed of establishing a pediatric prenatal clinic as an integral, but minor, part of an adolescent care clinic in a children's hospital. Our study has led us away from the concept of the psychopathologic cripple and our goal should be to help this young person emerge from this experience with as positive an image of herself as a mother as possible. © 1969.