THE latest batch of robot babies to invade Darlington and South-West Durham have arrived.

Sophisticated baby simulators, used to dissuade youngsters from having their own children too early, are now in use throughout the region.

As part of the Government-backed drive to reduce high teenage pregnancy rates, specialist nurses throughout the North-East are being equipped with the life-like American dolls.

The region has some of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the UK.

About 30 of the simulators are already in operation on Teesside, where they have been used to give teenagers experience of what it is like to be responsible for a crying infant.

Now ten of the computerised dolls have been delivered to nurses working for the South Durham Health Care NHS Trust, after Darlington's Bondgate Round Table group gave £3,000 to the trust to pay for them.

Sexual health outreach workers Gill Reeves and Pam Murgatroyd will be using the dolls as part of their work with young people in Darlington, Teesdale, Weardale and Sedgefield.

"The main idea is to use them with young people in youth club situations," said Mrs Reeves, who also works as a school nurse.

"A lot of young people think they would like a baby because it means they will get unconditional love from their child, but they don't realise what is really involved in looking after a baby 24 hours a day."

The dolls are the correct weight for a baby and have life-like features and skin texture.

Inside them is a computer chip which records whether the baby's ear-splitting cries have been heeded by its mother, and whether the child has been handled correctly.

"They have to treat it like a human baby. If it cries and doesn't get the attention it needs, it will be recorded by the computer chip," said Mrs Reeve.

Apart from youth clubs, the robot babies will also be used with young people who are in care and those with special educational needs.

Selected groups of young people who have a statistically higher chance of becoming teenage mothers will be targeted by project workers