US teen pregnancies continuing to fall
Print Edition
TEENAGE pregnancy and birth rates in the United States extended their two and a half decades’ decline because of increased contraceptive use, according to a US government study released on yesterday.
Most of the teens who have had sex by age 18 used some type of protection, typically a condom, the study of more than 4,000 teenagers by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics showed.
About 80 percent of teenagers used contraceptives during their first sexual encounters, the study found.
The study measured sexual activity, defined as vaginal intercourse between a female and a male, by teens aged 15 to 19 from 2011 to 2015.
The greater use of protection helped lower the rate of births by teenagers to 22 per 1,000 females in 2015 from 62 per 1,000 in 1991.
Teen pregnancy rates peaked in 1990 and have since fallen more than 50 percent, said Joyce Abma, researcher at the National Center for Health Statistics, who co-authored the report with Gladys Martinez.
Abma said the level of sexual activity among teenagers fell sharply until about 2002 and had since gradually declined, while the use of contraceptives had steadily increased.
Teenagers are generally more responsible than most parents think when it comes to when and if to have sex, said Bill Albert, spokesman for the nonprofit National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
“Adults, when they think of teen sexual culture, they see little more than a blur of bare midriffs,” Albert said.
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