The first session on the Young Mums' group was held at LenZone! Ararat on Tuesday 25th October 2005. We welcomed three expectant mothers aged from 16 years to 22 years of age. Most of the girls found out about the program from the flyer distributed around town.

Our guest speaker was Andrea Green who is the Ante-Natal Educator at the East Grampians Health Services.

Andrea is great at making people feel comfortable about asking her questions and soon the girls were firing questions about various topics.

Some of the areas covered included:
 

• When to come to hospital
• Pain relief options in labour. Medication available
• Being scared and frightened, to be expected.
• Breastfeeding/bottle feeding
• Smoking and pregnancy
• Post-natal depression
• Hormones

We discussed the notion of the ‘perfect’ female shape. There were examples of adolescent pregnancy, which I felt would show the girls that their changing body shape was quite natural, and nothing to be anxious about.

The third session was a fun session at the ‘Mum and bubs’ movie morning. One of our young mums was expecting to deliver that day and was notably absent.

After the show, we met up with some first-time mums from the Stawell Playgroup. Again, a volley of questions were thrown to the girls who were more than happy to share their experiences and gave our girls lots of helpful tips.

I am pleased to announce that our mums group now boasts a new baby boy born on Tuesday 8th November 2005.

I am continuing to spread the word about the group by distributing an upcoming activity calendar to relevant outlets.