The presence of the in-school day-care center at Gloucester High School — one of few schools in the state to have such a facility — is being cited by some critics as sending students a message that teen motherhood is OK.

And while he stands by the facility, Superintendent Christopher Farmer says the district will look into whether the center, which opened in 1996, somehow contributed to the spike in pregnancies within the school from a norm of about four to 18 this past school year.

"Clearly people are saying that it's possible that the presence of the day-care center may encourage teenage pregnancy," Farmer said. "Since people have raised the question, clearly it would be wise for us to address the question."

Fewer than 20 child-care centers are located in high schools around Massachusetts. Elsewhere in the country, many urban high schools are adding them.

Farmer said he does not believe the Gloucester High girls considered whether the school had day care when they chose to have their babies, and he's standing by previous comments to the Times suggesting that public schools have a responsibility to help young mothers complete their education. He and others have said the center has successfully done that for years.

Both school and health officials noted last month that all 18 of the students who were pregnant within the school completed the school year; not one dropped out, officials have said.

"We expect people to make mistakes, and educators hope that people learn from mistakes," the superintendent said. "If we as a society think that mistakes made by young people should permanently harm their life chances, than I would worry about that."

Advocates who run these child-care centers, however, say they must strike a delicate balance: responding to an undeniable need, while avoiding any implication that it is OK for teens to get pregnant.

The frenzy over the spike in pregnancies at Gloucester High sparked from the reports that several of the girls had intentionally gotten pregnant with the idea of being moms together and raising their children together.

While Gloucester High's day-care center is currently licensed to serve seven children, at least eight have already applied for slots for the coming school year, and officials are wrestling with how to solve the potential overcrowding.

Gloucester is not alone.

Diana Makhlouf, director of the teen parenting program at Malden High School, said she hears criticism of that school's child-care center as well. But she said many of the young moms did not even know the place existed before they decided to keep their babies.

"We're sort of in a corner in the back of the building, and we try to keep a low profile," she said. "Girls are not going out there and getting pregnant just because we're here. It's so much more complex than that."

In Washington, Maria Tukeva, principal of Bell Multicultural High School, said she wrestled with her decision to add a day-care center a few years ago. She feared that providing free day care might make parenting look easy or desirable. To counter the message, she now asks teen moms to participate in a parenting prevention group.

"It is the right thing to do to take care of these women, to help them succeed, to help them get the best education we can," said Bill Albert, chief program officer for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "We have to be equally as strong in sending a message of preventing future teen pregnancy, about how raising children and having children is an adult activity."

Patricia Quinn, executive director of the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, a nonprofit policy and advocacy organization, said in-school programs do not increase teen pregnancy. Gloucester's teen birth rate declined by about 45 percent from 1996 to 2006.

Nationally, the birth rate for women ages 15 to 19 rose 3 percent in 2006 — the first increase since 1991.

But Lauren Dolloff, a 19-year-old who graduated from Gloucester High in 2006, said girls who see classmates using the day-care center may get an incomplete picture of parenthood and believe it's easier than it really is. They don't see the moms staying up late to finish homework or caring for a sick baby, she said.

"It's showing other kids that it is OK if you have a child because you can still go to school," Dolloff said.