Bristol Palin, the pregnant 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, may have a new gal pal.

According to Access Hollywood Wednesday, another celebrity teenage mom, Jamie Lynn Spears, has sent a baby gift to Palin, in an apparent gesture of solidarity between two girls in unfortunate situations.

The report said Spears, whose elder sister Britney is unlikely to win any mother of the year contests, sent the 17-year-old mother-to- be a gift of designer burp cloths. Sponsored Links:

The note attached to the gift read, 'Dear Bristol, Hang in there - xoxo, Jamie Lynn.'

Jamie Lynn Spears, the star of Nickelodeon's Zoey 101 gave birth in June at the age of 17. That case sparked concerns about her position as a role model for teenage girls, and like the recent news about the candidate's daughter drew attention to the country's teen birthrate.

Figures released by the US Centres for Disease Control late last year showed that teen birth rates rose to 41.9 births per 1,000 girls in 2006 - it was the first increase since 1991 after a 14-year decline.

Bristol Palin's pregnancy was revealed on Sunday by her mother, two days after the little-known Alaskan governor was tapped as the surprise running mate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Sponsored Links:

Sarah Palin is staunchly anti-abortion and critics have used the news to draw attention to reports that as governor of the remote northern state she cut funding for programs designed to help shelter teenage mothers. She is also opposed to sex education classes in public schools that teach anything other than abstinence as the preferred method of birth control prior to marriage.

Political observers have wondered whether news of the pregnancy will hurt the campaign, though so far Republicans have rallied round their new second family for choosing to have the baby rather than undergo an abortion. McCain's campaign has derided the media for focusing on the issue, insisting that he was aware of the pregnancy before Palin was named as the vice presidential nominee.

McCain's support for the family was underlined on Wednesday when the Palins greeted McCain on his arrival in St Paul, Minnesota for the Republican convention. The 72-year old politician reserved especially warm hugs for the pregnant teenager and her boyfriend Levi Johnston. Sponsored Links:

The development could even represent political gold for the McCain campaign, according to celebrity watcher Elizabeth Snead, who writes The Dish Rag blog for the Los Angeles Times.

'I suspect McCain's camp has researched how many thousands - if not millions - of young women in the US have gotten pregnant in their teens or have daughters in the same situation as Bristol,' wrote Snead.

She pointed out that reader approval for Jamie Lynn keeping her baby far outnumbered those who thought she should have aborted or given up the baby for adoption.

'Why, this baby is a sure-fire, motivating vote-getter!,' said Snead. 'This unwed pregnancy is pure election-year gold!'

Planned Parenthood declined to comment on whether Palin's high profile teen pregnancy and the supportive reception she received might destigmatize the phenomenon.

But when Spears announced she was pregnant earlier this year, experts warned that it presented the wrong picture to impressionable teenage girls soon after the government report found that the incidence of teen pregnancy was rising for the first time since 1991.

Though the reasons for the increase are complex, Planned Parenthood and others have used it to criticize President George W Bush's support for abstinence-only sex education.

The federal government has spent over 1.5 billion dollars on abstinence education since Bush took office eight years ago and because cash-strapped states are required to match the federal funding, meaning they often have no money left over for more comprehensive sex education. The result is that 'fewer than half of public schools in the US now offer information on how to obtain birth control, and only a third include discussion of abortion and sexual orientation in their curricula,' the group claims.