Schoolgirl mums are to bring home their experiences to other youngsters in an innovative sex-education project in Bradford.

Eight volunteers aged 14 to 15 who are pregnant or who have recently given birth are being trained to talk about their own experiences as well as contraception and sexually transmitted disease with other teenagers at schools and youth groups in the area.

The novel approach extends Bradford's already successful Peer Education Programme which gets youngsters to talk to their peers about sex education as part of efforts to improve sexual health and reduce the rate of teenage pregnancies in the area.

The number of pregnancies among under-16s in the district has been rising for the last three years in line with national trends which show Britain has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe. There were 72 pregnancies among under-16s in Bradford in 1996, the latest year for which figures are available, compared to 65 the year before while the number of abortions in the age group rose by eight to 34 in 1996.

Safer sex is being highlighted this week in National Condom Week which ends tomorrow.

Derek Simmonds, manager of Bradford Health Promotion Unit's HIV and sexual health team, said it was important to address unintended teenage pregnancies. It was hoped pregnant schoolgirls and young mums would visit schools and youth clubs in coming months talking about how it was to be pregnant and a mother as a teenager.

"It's with a view to young people having healthy sex lives when they choose to have sex," he said.

"It's true to say most young girls who become pregnant are very proud of their children but if they had the chance again they may not have made the same choice.''

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