'I was so mad at how the midwife was judging me': What I learned after becoming pregnant at 14

Hayley Lugassy discovered she was pregnant at 14-years-old, she talks to The Independent about the joys, struggles and stigma of raising a child as a teenager

Research links smoking e-cigarettes while pregnant to craniofacial birth defects (Getty)

Becoming a mother for the first time at any age can be daunting but when you are technically still under the legal age of adulthood yourself, this can take on a whole new meaning.

Hayley Lugassy. 24, found out she was three months pregnant at 14 and gave birth to her son Byron at 15. Despite the assumption that a teenager’s reaction to an unplanned pregnancy might be one one fuelled by anxiety, she was actually quite excited – which she now says was down to the fact she did not fully comprehend becoming a mother.

“My reaction was probably very immature: ‘Yes I’m pregnant, that’s fantastic,’ she told The Independent. “ All I could think about was ‘yay I’m going to have a cute little thing I’m going to look after and be a Mummy’.”

Her excitement was one she experienced alone. Her school in Spain, where she was living with her family, urged her to get an abortion and even sent her to a therapist who told her she was too young and not ready to have a child. Despite an appointment being booked, Ms Lugassy was determined she was going to keep the baby: “I was almost forced to have an abortion but it was my body and nobody could force me.”

When Byron was born is when the enormity of having a child hit home: “I didn’t know what to do. I just remember laying there with all these doctors and nurses around me and then they put this tiny baby onto my chest and I looked at it thinking, ‘What is this and what do I do?’... That first experience where it should have been a happy moment in my life was a very confusing one. I was terrified at that point, that’s when it sunk in.’ When the midwife suggested Ms Lugassy feed Byron, she was so unsure of what she meant she asked where the bottle was.

Unsure of what to do and lacking in support, Ms Lugassy had to figure it out herself against the stigma of being a young mother (she had dropped out of school after refusing the abortion) which she says, shockingly, began in the hospital ward.

Hayley and Byron (Hayley Lugassy)

“When I gave birth, a male nurse was telling me to push and said in Spanish: ‘Well you were stupid enough to get pregnant, grow up and get on with it’…. I was so mad at how he was judging me especially as I was giving birth.”

Ms Lugassy says she soon experienced an issue which she believes is common among teenage mothers: Loneliness.

“I had no friends, within a few weeks I was just by myself. I was very emotional and upset and missed my family, a lot of whom were back in England.”

While she no longer felt she fitted in with her own friends, she also distanced herself from other mothers who were mainly older than her, for fear of being judged and not fitting in with them.

“Perhaps I could have had more support or made more friends but I felt so judged all the time and so insecure, I felt it was better for Byron and I to be alone by ourselves and to let nobody in in case they hurt us or were friends for a while and then left. It was very lonely, so I stuck to myself and built this little bubble and lived in it for a few years.”

Ms Lugassy left Spain when Byron was two, and now aged 24, she has put herself through college to get GCSEs, moved to Colombia and back, met a husband and bought a home. She is now studying psychology at the open university and works in a school. She hopes to write a book on her experiences of being a teenage mother.

“I could go on and on about suffering from depression as a young mother, the poverty we’ve experienced at times, the difficulties we faced and the amount of effort that has been required to get to where we are today […] That’s my job – to share my story in depth and show the world that the girl who was thought to never achieve much in life actually went on to do good things.”

And for anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation, Ms Lugassy says you should ignore the judgemental comments and channel your energy into being a good mother and not letting having a baby as a teenager determine what you will go on to do in life.

“Most people think if you fall pregnant young, you’re never going to be any good, you’re just going to be a mother, you’re never going to go on to work in business, for example, and that is the biggest misconception. There are so many opportunities and ways to achieve things you just need to know how.”