Explore carefully the possibility of marriage to the baby's father, the person intended by nature to meet the woman and child's continuing needs. For a young woman, her parents are another obvious source of encouragement. That relationship may have been shaken by storms of adolescence even before the pregnancy began. An impartial third party, especially one who knows from experience what it is to be a parent, may be able to help mend fences. Encourage consideration of adoption.
Adoption is a choice which benefits both baby and mother far more from than does single parenting.
It may be painful for a woman to imagine placing her child for adoption, but it may be a source of less pain over the years than the poverty, frustration, and blighted dreams of premature child-rearing or the guilt of abortion. Assure women that adoption delays for older foster children do not extend to babies, and their children will not be rejected. Help build employment plans that allow her to mother her child. Let churches offer more help with child care. The church is charged to care and suffer with the needy, and full-scale welfare interferes with hearing that call.