A Derry teenager has spoken of how a pioneering project involving specialist nurses has helped her cope with a new baby arriving in the middle of her GSCE exams.
St Mary’s College Year 14 pupil Nadine Melarkey, who became pregnant at 15, delivered a presentation before the Western Health and Social Care Trust Board at their February meeting last Thursday.
Nadine was studying for her GCSEs when she discovered she was pregnant and actually sat her exams in the days before and after she gave birth.
She is one of 128 first-time mothers aged 19 and under who have enrolled in the Trust’s Family Nursing Partnership (FNP) programme since it started three years ago.
The Western Trust’s Family Nurse Supervisor Monica Martin told the board that almost double this number of teenagers- 246- had been eligible for the nurse-led, home-based programme, which runs from early pregnancy through until the baby is two years of age.
The project aims to improve the health and well-being of the young girls and women and their babies, ensure they bond with their children, make the mothers more self-sufficient, and help them return to education, training or employment after they give birth.
Nadine told the board that when she found out she was pregnant with her daughter Ellie ‘the shock nearly knocked me off my feet’.
She said at the time her relationship with her boyfriend was already breaking down, and she had her GCSE exams on the horizon at her school.
“They became my priority. School was hard being the only pregnant girl at Claudy. It was very hard.
“I had no experience of young children being the youngest in the house and this scared me a lot. I was 30 weeks pregnant at my school formal.
“When I was offered FNP I took it, any help offered, because I was so scared. It became a lot easier. The first meeting made me feel more relaxed, more that I’m going to be OK.
“I was a 5th year at Claudy and they didn’t do Upper Sixth.
“When I was going to transfer to St Mary’s for Sixth Year, FNP helped me a lot. I found it hard to tell them I had a baby and I got help with that, and it was difficult coping with the demands of appointments and stuff, they were really nerve wracking but it was easier to talk to someone you know.”
Nadine said that after her mother got over the initial shock, their relationship became stronger and stronger, while friends also very supportive.
She said as her due date drew near so did her GCSE exams.
“My labour was late. I was due on May 20th and the exams started a few days later. I persuaded the consultant to induce me five days after my due date.”
The day before this, Nadine had sat one of her exams, and did the first of her other exams three days after giving birth.
The board members gave Nadine a round of applause after she revealed that despite having a baby in the middle of her GCSEs, she still achieved an A, three Bs and four C grades.
She said the FNP programme had been vital in helping to prepare her for the labour and in getting her to bond with baby Ellie, who will turn two this May.
To date over 50 teenager mothers have now graduated from the FNP programme, which is now recruiting again.
Ms Martin said they would love to offer the programme to even more girls.
Western Trust board chairman said FNP- the first project of its kind in Northern Ireland- as an ‘exemplar’ of the Transforming Your Care programme currently being rolled out across the Trust, with its focus on early intervention.
He also pointed out that Ms Martin had won the Public Health Award at Nurse of the Year awards.
“It is something to shout about and something we should be proud of,” Mr Guckian said.
“This is something people should be able to speak about and Ellie you can proud of your family.”
Trust chief executive Elaine Way said that that achieving a bond between a mother and her baby was vital to ensure the brain develops properly and the child thrives.
Ms Martin said that the award had been won by the entire FNP team.
She also described a lot of the young mothers on the programme as ‘very vulnerable’, and said many did not have the role models in their lives that others like Nadine had withy her own mother.
She said quite a few were young mothers were in foster care, cases of so-called Looked After Children with Looked After Children of their own.

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