Sally Adee reports in NewScientist (3 September 2016) on the surprising lack of support for the idea of using fake babies to discourage teenage pregnancy – and what happened when the idea was tested:
Now a study of more than 2800 girls at 57 schools has found that those who cared for a doll may have higher rates of pregnancy and abortion than those who didn’t. Behind the alluring narrative of the off-putting doll was a more complex reality. Giving these girls a cute, fun doll to take home for a weekend is not an accurate reflection of parenthood. Then there was the positive attention that the dolls create. The study isn’t without its flaws, but no one disputes its main finding – that the dolls didn’t work.
This cautionary tale is not an unusual one. Many common-sense interventions crumble under the slightest probing, especially in medicine. The baby simulator is just the most recent example of how social policy can go unexpectedly wrong.
For Sally this is a story with wider applicability – simple solutions are often not solutions. But I’m left wondering about the analysis of why this didn’t work – and what it would take to make it work? Give the girls a fake baby for a month? A year? It seems like this is merely a visceral discouragement, which, as noted, also had its advantages. How do you teach the girls that, once burdened with a baby, higher education becomes much harder for both parents – if the guy even hangs around?
If the Virtual Reality can add time compression to their contraptions then they might have a solution.
