Countywide : Prenatal Advice to Be Translated to Spanish

Jeanne Warren Lindsay knows that pregnant teen-agers need information about prenatal health care to have healthy newborn babies.

And because of the growing Spanish-speaking population, the Buena Park author decided to offer Latina mothers information about prenatal care in their own language.

“Spanish-speaking teens get pregnant and need help, too,” said Lindsay, who has written 15 books that deal with teen pregnancy, parenting, marriage and adoption.

One of Lindsay’s books, “Teen Parenting--Your Pregnancy & Newborn Journey,” co-authored with Jean Brunelli, a public health nurse, is being translated into Spanish.

The English version, published in 1991, has sold about 15,000 copies nationwide. The Spanish edition is expected to be available in January--and Lindsay hopes it will be a good seller.

“It won’t sell like the English version” because of the higher percentage of people in the country who read English versus Spanish, she said. “I don’t know what the sales will be. This is a gamble, but I’m ready.”

Lindsay, who for 16 years has written, edited and published her own books, admitted that translating the book to another language was nerve-racking at first.

“I was nervous until I talked further with a translator,” said Lindsay, who doesn’t speak or write Spanish. She said she feared that in translating her work from one language to another, the meaning could get “messed up.”

But Lindsay, a former teacher who taught prenatal health and parenting classes from 1972 to 1988, turned to her students for help.

“I’ve had students read it and they’ve reassured me,” she said.

Pat Alviso of Huntington Beach, who is the coordinator for the teen mother program in ABC Unified School District in Cerritos, where Lindsay formerly taught, said Spanish-language material is “something we really need.”

Alviso said 78% of the students enrolled in the district’s teen parenting program are Latinas.

“It is a fact that there are so many Spanish (speaking) teen parents,” she said, adding there are 92 girls in the program.

A Spanish-language book will be a boost for Latina mothers, Alviso said.

“It’s finally a recognition that Latinas are going to see themselves as being good parents,” she said. “When they see themselves being quoted and feel this book is about them, they’re being recognized as being good parents and learning good parenting skills.”

The book, published by Lindsay’s Morning Glory Press, is priced at $9.95 in paperback and $15.95 hardcover and geared to a sixth-grade reading level. The book will be used in classrooms, clinics, hospitals and by social service agencies.

Lindsay said the Spanish edition has the same educational information as the English version, including testimonial quotes from teen parents, the harms of using drugs during pregnancy, the value of good nutrition, care of the newborn, and living with parents after the baby is born. And there’s a chapter for teen fathers.

“I hope it encourages them to take care of the baby before it’s born and helps them in their early days after birth,” she said.

Lindsay said her books deal with issues after the pregnancy and promote delaying another pregnancy.

“The majority of teen mothers have another baby within two years,” she said. “The best route to prevent teen-age pregnancy is for young people to have goals. They’re much less likely to have a baby if they have something else going for them.”