FALLING pregnant aged 13 is a fate many of us could never imagine – but it became a reality for Juliette Ackerman in March last year.
The teen was thrust into womanhood almost instantly, and has bravely spoken out about how she was immediately torn on whether to keep her baby or put her up for adoption.
Juliette, now 14-years-old, also considered having an abortion.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics released last year show that 13,131 girls aged under 18 fell pregnant in 2021.
This was a small rise from 12,576 in 2020, after a long-term trend of decreasing numbers.
“When I saw those two lines on the pregnancy test, I was horrified,” Juliette recalls.
But she didn’t go through with the pregnancy and was soon forced to tell her mum of the unexpected news.
“I was pregnant at the end of Year 9, and it was so hard… kind of depressing and embarrassing,” Juliette says.
“I believed to my core that I could not get pregnant, and I was infertile.
“It wasn’t a good decision to get pregnant at 14, but it was a good one to keep Violette for sure as she’s perfect.”
Grandma Krista Boyd, 39, shared how the initial shock of her daughter becoming a teen mum made her want to run for the hills.
“Within a few minutes, I realised it wasn’t the end of the world as something beautiful was going to come out of it and I ended up being supportive,” she says.
Now, Juliette is embracing her journey as a teen mum with her daughter Violette, who is already six-months-old.
The 14-year-old has taken to TikTok to show off her unconventional journey into motherhood.
But this has sadly opened her up to criticism.
Users online have told her that she’s “too young to be a mum” – which is something that Juliette admits is true.
Teen pregnancies in the UK have been decreasing considerably since 2007...
The under-18 conception rate has decreased considerably since 2007, reports Nuffield Trust.
Between 2007 and 2021, the under-18 conception rate in England and Wales decreased by 68%, from 42 per 1,000 women to 13 per 1,000 women.
This resulted in 13,131 under-18 conceptions in England and Wales in 2021.
She confessed to “not having a motherly bone in her body” after imagining that she would never have children in her lifetime – but she’s now making it work as a single mum.
During Juliette’s pregnancy, there were concerns that because of her young age and having a short cervix, she could suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum.
This is excessive vomiting which can lead to weight loss as well as prodromal labour which is a false labour contraction.
At 36 weeks, Juliette did actually experience prodromal labour after having bad contractions and was forced to go into hospital where she feared little Violette was going to be born premature.
It was so hard… kind of depressing and embarrassing
Juliette Ackerman
A number of hospital trips later, Juliette gave birth a day before her due date in December.
“Throughout my whole pregnancy I did feel very left out with most things,” she says.
“I would see my old friends going places for the summer and I couldn’t even hang out with my friends.
“But eventually I learned to cope with it.”
