Fewer U.S. teens having babies

Story by AFA Journal Staff. Sources cited for News of Interest indicate source of basic information only. July 2008

  Teen pregnancy is not as prevalent as it was nearly 15 years ago, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics.
  In 2004, the most recent year for these statistics, teenagers made up 12% of all pregnancies in the U.S., compared to 15% in 1990.
  Stephanie Ventura, who headed up the study for the CDC, said the drop in teen pregnancies could be due to behavioral changes and increased use of contraceptives among the most sexually active teens.
  At the same time, the study showed more women in their 20s had out-of-wedlock pregnancies.
  Ventura said the picture of a typical unwed mother is no longer a teenage girl, but rather an older woman. She said over 75% of births to unmarried women are to women over the age of 20.
  “More of them [older women] are likely to have the baby rather than having an abortion compared to 1990,” Ventura explained. Plus, she said birth rates among all older women have been going up for the past 20 to 30 years.
  www.msnbc.com, 4/14/08