TEENAGERS from the North-East have become the first in the UK to spend the night with a crying robot baby.

Dreamed up by Americans to try to cut soaring teenage pregnancy rates, the scheme involves giving teenage pupils a lifelike electronic baby for one night.

Funded by Tees Health Authority's Health Action Zone the £11,000 "Baby-think-it-over" scheme is designed to deter young girls from an early pregnancy.

The North-East has some of the highest teen pregnancy rates in England and the Government has pledged to slash them by 50 per cent within 10 years.

It is believed that ten 15 year old girls from Ormesby comprehensive school on Teesside were the first in the country to get the chance to "mother" the £300 robots overnight.

Normally the 8lb, highly-realistic "infant simulators" are used in classroom teaching sessions. But this time the girls were given the chance to be in charge of the babies for 24 hours.

The girls were each given a dummy baby and taken out to the remote Baldersdale outdoor pursuits centre, in Upper Teesdale. But first, school nurses programmed the dolls to start crying every few hours.

The only way the crying can be stopped is to insert a special key into the doll's back - where it has to be held for up to 30 minutes.

In some cases, the dolls are also programmed to repeatedly reject the keys.

After a disturbed night - when few of the pupils got much sleep - the girls were all glad to hand back their babies to a team of school nurses.

"One girl was pretty close to tears because of the constant crying," one of the nurses said.

The girls also felt the full weight of social disapproval when they were stared as they carried the babies around Morrisons, at Morton Park, Darlington.

The weekend was a pilot scheme and it is now hoped that youngsters from all five of Teesside's education action zone secondary schools will get the chance to repeat the visit.

There are hopes that teenage boys will also get the chance to spend a sleepless night looking after baby