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.

Now, after the world's attention was focused on the small, predominantly Catholic fishing town, school officials are casting doubt on the claim made by the school's principal that the girls banded together and planned to get pregnant and raise the babies together. School Committee Chairman Greg Verga told the Boston Herald on Monday (June 26) that Principal Joseph Sullivan is the only person who has made the claims that half the expectant teens at Gloucester High planned to get pregnant.

"I'm calling into question the whole pact thing," said Verga, who will be among the officials at a meeting Monday morning with Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk and other city leaders to discuss how to deal with the pregnancy spike at the school. "I have reason to believe that no one has come forward other than the principal, who is saying he heard someone say it. The more logical occurrence is that two or more girls got pregnant and decided to have a pact to stick together from that point on."

Verga told USA Today that the story about the alleged pact had gotten out of control in the month since a local newspaper reported on the spike in pregnancies at the school and the resignation of the doctor and nurse who ran the school's health clinic.

The fourfold increase in pregnancies at Gloucester High — there were four the previous year — shocked parents and officials in the town, but Mayor Kirk told The Associated Press over the weekend that school counselors, teachers and the girls' families have not found an independent confirmation of the principal's claims. Sullivan has since told city officials that he cannot remember who his source was for the tale of the pact.

Sullivan is on vacation and was not expected to be at Monday's meeting.

So far, Jamie Lynn Spears appears to have taken the troubles faced by her sister, Britney, to heart as she celebrates the birth of her first child. The 17-year-old singer/actress, who delivered a baby girl on Thursday, recently bought a house near her hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana, and settled down with fiance Casey Aldridge, 19. She also tried to stay well away from the glare of the Hollywood paparazzi as she prepared to be a mom.

In addition to getting her GED earlier this year, the "Zoey 101" star has said she plans to take a hiatus from work in order to concentrate on being a mother. But that hasn't stopped some social critics from lamenting the seemingly glamorous take on teen pregnancy some high school students might be getting from the tabloid coverage of Spears' baby, as well as the nonjudgmental messages of recent accidental-pregnancy movies "Juno" and "Knocked Up."

On Thursday — the same day that Time magazine's Web site posted a story on a teen pregnancy "pact" in Massachusetts among 17 high school girls — the CEO of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy released a statement in response to the Spears birth.

"Every child deserves a warm welcome, and we hope that Jamie Lynn Spears' new daughter, Maddie Briann, will be surrounded by much love, support and comfort," Sarah Brown wrote. "But the media frenzy that is sure to now erupt, as it did when this pregnancy was announced
last December, provides every parent, teacher, media outlet and more a chance to state the truth: Babies need and deserve adult parents who are committed to each other and to decades of being the best parents possible.

"Hundreds of thousands of teens and unmarried young adults get pregnant and become parents every single year, and few of them have Hollywood beginnings or endings," the statement continued. "Getting pregnant and bearing children is one of the most important steps that any person ever takes, and it deserves careful planning, thought and consideration."

The group's response comes amid reports that the teen birth rate was up by 3 percent in 2006, the first increase in nearly 15 years. According to the campaign, at present, three in 10 girls in the United States become pregnant by age 20, with more than 729,000 teen pregnancies annually.

How do you think Jamie Lynn has handled her pregnancy? Let us know!

The girls' plan shocked parents and administrators at the 1,200-student school and sparked a still-simmering debate about contraception in the fiercely Catholic fishing town's schools, the Boston Globe reported.

"More students are coming in and asking about pregnancy testing," Gloucester's public health director, Jack Vondras, told the Globe last month. "What's odd is that some of them are disappointed because they're not getting pregnant." The Time article reported that at least half the pregnant teens planned to have the babies and that some high-fived each other and began planning baby showers when they found out they were expecting, while others seemed disappointed when their results came back negative. School officials began investigating the unusual spike in teen pregnancies in October, when more than the usual amount of students began visiting the school health clinic for pregnancy tests. By May of this year, Time reported, the school's nurse practitioner had administered 150 pregnancy tests at the clinic, prompting the staff to advocate prescribing contraceptives to students without parental consent.

Equally disturbing is that some of the men involved in the pregnancies are in their mid-20s, one reportedly being a homeless 24-year-old from the area. Last month at a school committee meeting, Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk inquired about filing statutory-rape charges against some of the men, according to the paper.

(In January, MTV News asked experts and a panel of young people, "Why Don't We Always Use Condoms?")

The Time report described the predominantly white, blue-collar town of 30,000 as having been hit hard by the downturn in the fishing industry, with school Superintendent Christopher Farmer saying that the economic hardship has devastated some local families. "Families are broken," he told the magazine. "Many of our young people are growing up directionless."

Two Gloucester teen moms who unexpectedly got pregnant while sophomores at the high school last year told the Herald that the girls who made the pregnancy pact have no idea what's ahead of them. "If I could go back in time, I would want to wait and have the same baby later. You can't do stuff that normal teens do," said Meaghan Orlando, now 17 and the mother of 3-month-old Jayden. "They don't know what they're getting themselves into."

Orlando's childhood friend and fellow new mom Alivia Fidler said the pact was "ridiculous." Fidler — who, like Orlando, plans to return to school next year as a junior — warned the teens that their friendship won't likely survive the multiple births. "They're not going to be friends very long. You have to take care of your baby," said Fidler, who has broken up with the baby's father and lost her job at McDonald's, according to the paper. "It's frustrating. I don't have a lot of support."

At a time when the national teen pregnancy rate rose 3 percent in 2006 — the first increase in 15 years — Time suggested that the school may have done too good a job embracing its young mothers. Sex-ed classes at the school end freshman year, and teen parents are encouraged to take their children to the free on-site day-care center. "We're proud to help the mothers stay in school," said Sue Todd, CEO of the company that runs the in-school day care. The report described a scene where strollers sit seamlessly alongside cheerleaders and junior ROTC members in the hallways of Gloucester High.

(For more on teen pregnancy and other sex-related issues, check out ItsYourSexLife.com.)