Forging friendship, soliciting support: A mixed-method examination of message boards for pregnant teens and teen mothers

Among pregnant youth, relationships with parents and romantic partners are correlated with overall wellbeing; however, this relationship does not exist with friends. Friends who have also experienced a pregnancy, however, may offer more effective support than friends who have not. One way that pregnant and mothering adolescents can connect is through online message boards. We hypothesized that adolescents would use these sites primarily to establish friendships and develop a supportive community, rather than simply to solicit pregnancy-related advice. We randomly selected 200 threads from four message boards for pregnant and mothering teens and performed a mixed-methods content analysis of the original posts and responses. Most original posts were categorized as “Community Oriented Posts,” rather than “Soliciting Pregnancy or Motherhood Advice.” Furthermore, qualitative analysis revealed frequent instances of emotional support, instrumental support, and informational support in both categories. In message board communities where pregnant teens and teen mothers were in the majority, messages were predominantly positive. In sharp contrast, in the one message board in which they were in the minority, as they are in the adolescent community at large, messages were significantly more negative. The dynamics of these message boards indicate the possibility that social support from other pregnant or mothering teens may enhance the wellbeing of pregnant teens and explain why peer “support” from teens who have not had this experience may often have a negative influence on wellbeing.