USA: Teen birthrate continues to fall

Birthrates to teenage girls continued their 15-year decline in 2005 as adolescents got into the habit of using condoms during sexual intercourse, claims a report by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics.

Edward J. Sondik, director of the National Center for Health Statistics, said that changes in sexual behavior and pregnancy found in the 10th anniversary America’s Children report were dramatic and generally told a story of decreased sexual activity and pregnancy among teens, reported the Washington Post.

‘These are overall positive trends for teens that suggest greater health and well-being,’ Sondik said. ‘It also means that teens are being exposed less to sexually transmitted disease.’

Sondik said that the trends described in the report released today generally started during the 1990s and have either continued or reached a plateau in recent years.

One of the most dramatic increases involved condom use by high school students - with 63% reporting using that protection during their last sexual encounter, compared with 46% in 1991. During that same time, the report said, the percentage of girls who said they used birth control pills remained about the same.

As a result, the teen birthrate has been declining, while the percentage of high school students engaging in sexual behaviour remained relatively stable. About 47% of high school students - 4.6 million teenagers - reported having had sexual intercourse in 2005, down from 54% in 1991.

The report, by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, also found that since the late 1990s, the number of children born to unmarried women in their 20s rose significantly, resulting in an overall increase in the birthrates to unmarried women. The percentage of infants born weighing less than 5 pounds, 8 ounces increased from 8.1 percent in 2004 to 8.2 percent in 2005.

Teen Sexual Activity and Birthrates Decline - Report Also Shows Rise in Number of Children Born to Single Women in Their 20s. Washington Post, 13 July 2007

America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2007.