By Sabrina Rojas Weiss

Teen pregnancy is in the air! You’ve got to wonder what deal with the devil NBC made to produce this coincidence: The week before the premiere of “The Baby Borrowers,” Jamie Lynn Spears gave birth and that whole maybe-possible Massachusetts “pregnancy pact” story blew up. That’s certainly why we made sure to tune into the show on Wednesday night.

A quick recap for those of you who didn’t watch: The six-part series places five teenage couples in comfy suburban houses, where they have to take care of infants for three days, then spend three days each taking care of toddlers, preteens and their pets, teenagers and, finally, seniors. Also, one member of each couple has to work a day job. Obviously, these cocky kids are expected to learn that they’re far from being fully prepared to take care of other human beings.

The first question everyone seems to ask when they hear about this show is, why would any parents in their right mind hand their children over to other kids for three days? As a former teenage babysitter myself, I don’t find that so troubling. These parents get to watch their babies on monitors from across the street, and in addition to a fulltime camera crew, each of the couples is “shadowed” by a professional nanny just in case. In the first episode, all of the parents testify that they’re participating because they want to teach teenagers about how hard it is to be a parent.

My main question: Are the show’s producers hoping this will somehow send a message to teens across the country? Because I don’t think they’ve properly thought this through. The show looks and feels pretty generic: Switch a few details and this could be “Wife Swap” or “Supernanny” or any number of cookie-cutter network reality series. There’s no attempt to appeal to a younger demo with music, quick editing style or snarky narration. You know, it’s got none of that MTV magic. And if this isn’t a show for teens, it just seems like a chance for old folks to laugh and say, “I told you so!” the second the “Borrowers” receive their screaming, pooping, teething bundles of joy. And you can just imagine parents of teens rubbing their hands together with glee in anticipation of the episode when the couples have to “parent” kids their own age.

I’m not saying this isn’t entertaining, and of course, the five couples are instantly learning their lesson. But the participants are also all ages 18-20, and many of them are in college, so as bratty and/or naive as they seem, they also appear to be at least slightly concerned with their future. (According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, it’s the teens who drop out of school who are more likely to get pregnant.) And of the really at-risk youth, how many are unaware of how hard it is to take care of an infant? In my hometown, even in my own family, there’s no shortage of examples of how becoming a teen mother can really cramp your style. Yet the kids are still having kids — probably not on purpose.

So are the scare tactics of “The Baby Borrowers” really going to make a difference? Or should the powers that be instead concentrate their efforts on a slick, hip way of proving to teens how freaking easy it is to use contraception? It’s certainly easier than changing diapers. Tell us what you think.