On a campus focused on academic and extracurricular achievement, finding out about a pregnancy can be a difficult experience for a student. But UCLA has several organizations and services aimed at aiding students by providing them with support and information.
“Having children is not an easy thing to do, and deciding to terminate a pregnancy is not an easy thing to do,” said Liz Gong-Guy, director of Student Psychological Services.
Since there are several reasons a woman can miss a period, Susan Quillan, director of student health nursing at the Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center, said taking a pregnancy test is an important first step.
Students can make an appointment to take a pregnancy test either through the Ashe Center Web site or as a part of drop-in services. Quillan emphasized that those students who drop in do not need to worry about compromising their privacy. For those students who have Student Health Insurance Plan, or SHIP, the appointment costs no more than the normal co-pay.
Since a potential pregnancy can be a highly personal issue for students, they can simply ask to see a triage nurse for personal reasons instead of specifying a potential pregnancy as the reason for their visit, Quillan added.
“We don’t ask for personal information in public,” she said.
Students can choose whether to take a urine or a blood pregnancy test at the Ashe Center. Both are equally accurate and, if a student has SHIP, are administered at no extra cost, Quillan said.
She added that under most circumstances, students can receive urine test results within a few hours, and blood test results are available by the end of the day.
If a student’s test indicates she is pregnant, she is encouraged the make an appointment with a pregnancy counselor. Quillan said pregnancy counselors can help students explore their options, which include taking time to think, carrying the pregnancy to term or terminating the pregnancy.
But while the Ashe Center can help students determine whether they are pregnant and offers options counseling, the center does not provide prenatal care for students who decide to carry their pregnancy to term. Instead, the Ashe Center works with students to refer them to hospitals that do offer prenatal care.
Students who have SHIP or Blue Cross insurance are eligible for care at the UCLA Medical Center. For those students who have alternative health insurance or no health insurance at all, Ashe Center counselors can help locate adequate medical care or file the proper paperwork for medical assistance programs such as Medical, Quillan said.
In addition to physical health care, UCLA offers services to ensure the mental and emotional well-being of pregnant students.
Gong-Guy said she has found that pregnant students or students who are trying to become pregnant face a diverse set of concerns and many find counseling to be a valuable resource.
“Counseling is one of the few neutral spaces because we can hear objectively as a third party,” she said. “We don’t have our own agenda.”
Gong-Guy said she has observed students grappling with such issues as financial and family concerns as well as, for some students, how to break the news to their parents.
But she was quick to emphasize that there is no concrete profile of the concerns pregnant students have. In addition, she said the life stage of a pregnant student can influence her view of her pregnancy.
Unlike undergraduate students, graduate students are often trying to get pregnant, Gong-Guy said, and often have the support of spouses and additional resources to make the pregnancy easier.
However, for some graduate students, juggling multiple responsibilities, such as school, family and other children simultaneously, can be very stressful Gong-Guy said.
Ultimately, pregnancy can be a difficult time for any student, Gong-Guy said.
For students who do carry their pregnancies to term, UCLA also offers child care facilities.
One such facility is the Infant Development Program, or IDP, directed by Ani Shabazian through the psychology department.
The program offers child care to children ranging in age from 3 months to 3 years and focuses on a highly personalized curriculum tailored to the interests and developmental stage of each child, Shabazian said.
IDP is a center that operates both as a child care facility and a research facility for psychology students and professors studying early childhood development, Shabazian said.
IDP is also unique in that it focuses on giving psychology graduate students and psychology professors priority for enrollment. As a result, psychology graduate students have priority enrollment over tenured professors in other departments.
IDP has a wait list of up to two years, and while graduate students and undergraduate students from other departments are welcome to join the wait list, the high position of psychology students and faculty almost ensures them on-site child care.
“It’s honorable, it’s progressive, and it shows they’re thinking about students holistically,” she said.
In addition, UCLA also offers child care through the Early Care and Education program.
The program offers two types of services, said executive director Gay Macdonald. Families enrolled in the program are either given an opportunity to enroll their children in one of the child care centers near campus or given resources to help them find other services.
In addition, students who cannot afford child care can apply for financial assistance and qualify for grants provided by the state, the federal government or private funds accrued by the program.
But as with all services on campus, Macdonald said she believes not enough students know what is available.
“First they have to know about it,” she said.