Social Issues Affecting America's Children - Teen Pregnancy And Births

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) tracks vital statistics in the United States. It found that between 1990 and 2002 the birth rate for all women under age thirty declined. For teenagers age fifteen to seventeen the rate dropped by nearly 40%, to 23.2 births per one thousand women. For older teens age eighteen to nineteen the birth rate declined by 18%, to 72.8 per one thousand women. (See Figure 4.5.) Other data from the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics revealed that reduced adolescent birth rates were most significant among African-American teens. The 1991 rate of 86 per one thousand for African-American females age fifteen to seventeen declined to just 41 per one thousand in 2002.

Some analysts ascribed the declining pregnancy trend to the increasing use of birth control methods, especially longerlasting contraceptives such as Norplant and Depo-Provera. The increasing use of condoms due to fear of contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases was also thought to contribute to the lower pregnancy rate. Other analysts, however, credited an increase in the practice of abstinence.

Many public-health experts believed that the factors that predisposed adolescents to drug use were the same ones that predisposed them to teen pregnancy—poverty, family dys-function, child abuse, and early education difficulties.

Of concern for all births was the increase in low birth weight babies (5.5 pounds or less). According to the CDC, at 7.0% in 1990, the incidence of low birth weight babies

TABLE 4.7

Percentage of high school students who engaged in sexual behaviors, 2003
	Ever had sexual intercourse			Had first sexual intercourse before age 13 years			Had ≥4 sex partners during lifetime
	Female	Male	Total	Female	Male	Total	Female	Male	Total
Category	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
SOURCE: "Table 42. Percentage of High School Students Who Engaged in Sexual Behaviors, by Sex, Race/Ethnicity, and Grade," in Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance—United States, 2003, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, vol. 53, no. SS-2, Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, May 21, 2004, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/SS/SS5302.pdf (accessed July 27, 2004)
Race/ethnicity
White	43.0	40.5	41.8	3.4	5.0	4.2	10.1	11.5	10.8
Black	60.9	73.8	67.3	6.9	31.8	19.0	16.3	41.7	28.8
Hispanic	46.4	56.8	51.4	5.2	11.6	8.3	11.2	20.5	15.7
Grade
9	27.9	37.3	32.8	5.3	13.2	9.3	6.4	14.2	10.4
10	43.1	45.1	44.1	5.7	11.2	8.5	8.8	16.4	12.6
11	53.1	53.4	53.2	3.2	7.5	5.4	13.4	18.6	16.0
12	62.3	60.7	61.6	1.9	8.8	5.5	17.9	22.2	20.3
Total	45.3	48.0	46.7	4.2	10.4	7.4	11.2	17.5	14.4

FIGURE 4.5

rose to 7.8% in 2002. This was not an issue specific only to teenage mothers. Besides prenatal care concerns, medical experts noted the increase in higher-order multiple births (greater than twins), which tended to lower the birth weight of all the infants.