A TEENAGE mum has described the agonising choice over whether to have her baby.

Young Georgina Terrell spoke to the Oxford Mail to warn other girls to concentrate on their education after new figures showed 347 teenage girls became pregnant in Oxfordshire in 2008, compared to 350 the previous year.

Almost half – 46 per cent – went on to have an abortion.

The figures show less than a one per cent drop in conception rates, and slightly fewer teenagers having abortions than in 2007.

Weeks after finishing school, Georgina, then 16, only decided to go ahead with her pregnancy on the doorstep of an abortion clinic.

She said: “I was just about to go to college, and it was a choice between that or a baby. I honestly did not know what to do.

“I went up to the hospital for a termination, and it was only on the day that I turned around and said: ‘No, I want to go home’.

“I just knew it wasn’t what I wanted.”

Five years on, son Charlie has started school, and Miss Terrell, now 21, of Queen’s Road, Carterton, will start at Oxford Brookes University in September.

She said: “I think every teenager wants to have sex because everyone else is doing it, without really realising the consequences.

“They need to be taught that sex is meant to be with somebody you love.

“Having a child at 16 is not an ideal situation.

“I would love to tell young girls the realities of it. It is better to go out and get an education, a career and find somebody, rather than thinking you have found the love of your life at 16.”

Blackbird Leys mum Michelle Sutherland, whose three-year-old son Josh was born when she was 17, said: “Everybody would prefer to have a proper little family, but it didn’t turn out that way for me.

“It was hard to get used to at first, but it depends on who you have around you.

“I did have sex education at school, but they didn’t really talk about teenage pregnancy much. I learnt more about it from other people than I did at school.”

Oxfordshire’s teenage pregnancy coordinator Lucy Russell said the fall in conception rates was “really welcome news” that showed the benefits of improvements in young people’s services.

Since last July, girls as young as 11 have been able to text for the morning-after pill at four schools in Oxford and two in Banbury identified as teenage pregnancy hotspots. They are: St Gregory the Great, Cheney, Oxford Academy, and Oxford School; and the North Oxfordshire Academy and Banbury School.

In November, NHS Oxfordshire, the county’s primary care trust, announced it was looking to expand the controversial initiative, which also set up drop-in sessions and direct links to health nurses across the county.