Pearila Brickner Namerow's research while affiliated with Family Health Center and other places

This article describes the experiences of young, American birth mothers with regard to openness in adoption process and arrangement. Generally, larger proportions of the sample have experienced moderate, or semi-open, arrangements than those involving direct contact with the adoptive family. The associations between these experiences and a series of social psychological outcomes are examined at four years post-relinquishment. The data reveal that features of open adoption, e.g., visiting/phoning the adoptive family, have strong associations with long-term, positive outcomes for birth mothers. Perhaps equally important is the finding that several moderately open features which do not require direct or ongoing contact between birth mothers and adoptive families, e.g., birth mothers having a role in choosing the adoptive couple, are also strongly associated with positive outcomes. Policy implications are discussed.

This paper compares the consequences of placing versus parenting for young women who experienced a non-marital teenage pregnancy. We examined whether placers were faring better, worse or no differently from parenters four years after giving birth. The findings clearly indicate that relative to parenting, resolving a teenage pregnancy by relinquishing one's infant for adoption is a positive choice resulting in more favorable outcomes on a broad variety of sociodemographic and social psychological outcomes. At the bivariate level, on virtually every outcome except feelings about the pregnancy resolution decision, placers fared significantly better than parenters. When control was introduced for sociodemographic background factors and several post-birth mediators, the differences in sociodemographic outcomes and feelings about the pregnancy resolution decision remained unchanged. However, the differences between placers and parenters on virtually all of the remaining social psychological outcomes, were explained by their varying marital, fertility and welfare experiences since the birth of the index child.

This survey reveals high levels of job-related stress among social workers, counselors and health educators working with HIV/AIDS patients in five large, urban medical centers. Stress is associated not only with the severity of AIDS as a disease, but also with several organizational characteristics of respondents' job sites. The availability and usefulness of several on-site, stress-reduction strategies are explored. Overall, where services such as stress-reduction workshops, support groups, and rotations away from direct patient care are offered, workers participate in them and perceive them as useful in reducing job-related stress. Interest in these and other stress-reduction services is high among those who do not currently have them available.

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth reveal that approximately one-quarter of teenage mothers have a second child within 24 months of their first birth. The prevalence of closely spaced second births is greatest (31%) among young women whose first birth occurred prior to age 17. Teenage mothers' characteristics before the first birth (such as race or ethnicity and parents' level of education) and at the time of the first birth (such as years of schooling completed and whether their first birth was wanted) influence whether they have a rapid second birth. For example, those with more educated parents are less likely than others to have had a closely spaced second birth. In addition, young mothers who obtain additional schooling in the period after their first birth are less likely to have a closely spaced second birth, while those who marry are more likely to have a rapid second birth.

This article describes the experiences of 215 young birthmothers who placed their infants for adoption through 30 maternity residences and agencies in 13 states. The prebirth services they received, their immediate postbirth experiences, and several characteristics of their adoption arrangements are described. A bivariate analysis revealed that several service-procedural variables are related to social-psychological outcomes for the birthmothers at six months after the birth. Policy implications are presented.

A longitudinal study of young women's pregnancy resolution decision making provided evidence of the important role of significant others; also observed was a positive association between prior adoption socialization experiences and the choice of adoption. Conceptual approaches to decision making considered in the analysis included opportunity structures, socialization, social networks, and expectancy value theory. Subjects included 527 unmarried women 21 years of age or younger who were recruited from US maternity residences and prenatal clinics. Mean age was 17 years; 73% of subjects were White. On a descriptive level, the adoption choice was more frequent among White women (55%), and those with above-average educational aspirations (51%). When the subject's mother was in favor of placement, 75% chose adoption and only 18% kept the child; when the boyfriend wanted adoption, these statistics were 82% and 34%, respectively. If the subject or a close relative had been adopted, 59% chose adoption and 39% kept the child. Next, logistic regression was used to develop a multivariate analysis of pregnancy resolution decisions. The most significant (p 0.001) determinants of pregnancy choice were mother wants placement of child, close relative wants placement, and the expectancy that the quality of the mother and child's life would be adversely influenced by keeping the child. Significant at the 0.01 level were not having a boyfriend or having a boyfriend who wants placement. Only 1 demographic variable--women in an age-appropriate grade--was significantly associated with adoption. Since adoption is selected by less than 3% of US women, this outcome was overrepresented in this sample by the inclusion of maternity homes as a recruitment site.

This study assesses the short-term consequences of parenting versus placing for adoption in a sample of young, unmarried, pregnant women, 311 of whom parented and 216 of whom relinquished their babies. The women were interviewed during the final trimester of pregnancy and again at 6 months post-birth. Bivariate results indicate that both groups were relatively comfortable with their pregnancy resolution decisions. Logistic regression results indicate that net of pre-existing differences, placers were less comfortable with their decision, fared better on the sociodemographic outcomes and were indistinguishable from parenters on social psychological outcomes. These results are more encouraging than those from previous studies reporting strong dissatisfaction with the decision and negative psychological consequences for relinquishers. These findings have to be qualified by the short-term nature of the consequences studied and the nature of the sample.

Three groups of young pregnant women living in maternity residences--those who intended to place their babies for adoption, those who considered adoption but planned to parent and those who never considered adoption--were compared regarding their socioeconomic characteristics, attitudes toward adoption and the personal influences on their decisions. Of the 430 young women, those who intended to place their babies for adoption tended to be at one extreme on most profile variables, those who had considered placing were in an intermediate position, and those who never considered placing their babies were at the other extreme. Placers were both the most advantaged socioeconomically and held the most positive attitudes toward adoption, while young women who never considered adoption were the least advantaged and held the least favorable attitudes. Placers consistently reported that their choice to place their babies rather than parent would increase the likelihood of outcomes such as continuing with school, having enough money to live comfortably and benefiting the baby's emotional development, while those young women who did not consider adoption tended to feel that these outcomes would be more likely if they parented, or that the likelihood of the outcomes would not be affected by their choice. Young women who intended to place their babies were encouraged in that direction by their mothers, fathers and boyfriends, while the two groups of women who chose parenting were encouraged to do so by those in their social networks.