BALTIMORE, MD — Abstinence pledges don’t lead to happier, healthier, more sexually well-adjusted youth. In fact just the opposite may be true, according to a study published December 29th by researchers at Johns Hopkins University.The study, led by Dr. Janet Elise Rosenbaum and published in the January 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, concluded that teens who vow to remain celibate until marriage are no less likely than their peers to engage in sexual activity. Worse, they are more likely to have unprotected sex, resulting in increased exposure to disease and unwanted pregnancy.

The news came as no surprise to professionals who work with pregnant teenagers.

“I was heavily involved in an abstinence program through our church — right before I got pregnant,” Mandy Black, founder of a mentoring program that provides assistance to pregnant teens and young parents, told Simpsonville, SC’s WYFF-TV.

Black, who had her first child out of wedlock at 18, said teens actually find more benefit in a liberal dose of reality. That way, they can make informed decisions and be prepared to protect themselves on a number of fronts. Parents, religious leaders and educators tend to worry too much about the potential impact of mixed messages implied when abstinence and health-protection information are imparted simultaneously.

“We’d like to think the morality of it and that sort of thing is enough,” she told WYFF-TV. “I think if we are not being real about the fact that teens are tempted with this, then we are missing the boat.”

The Johns Hopkins study compared two groups of 1,000 high school students. The members of one group had taken a sexual abstinence pledge, and the others hadn’t. Researchers reported they found no significant difference among behaviors — including number of sexual partners and the age at which they lost their virginity — between the two groups. Of more significance, the researchers noted, was the finding that “abstinent” teens are less likely to use condoms or other means of birth control.