40% of teens get pregnant each year...

[Greaseball]

According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pg.

Does anyone have any other stats, or any idea how this was researched? It says one million teens every year, but how many teens are there in the U.S.? Also, they said it includes those ages 18 and 19.

Actually with the each year thing it said that was for the one million teens, and the 40% was girls under age 20 who have been pregnant at least once.

What are the sources of this info - high schools? Abortion clinics? OB offices?

Does anyone have a different statistic?

[Marlena]

I don't have different stats, but it doesn't sound right at all. Let me see if I can find anything....

Here's something from their own site:

http://www.teenpregnancy.org/about/a...ease5_7_03.asp

The teen pregnancy data, compiled by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, indicates that the U.S. teen pregnancy rate has declined 26.8% between 1990 and 1999 - from a peak in 1990 of 116.9 pregnancies per 1,000 girls aged 15-19 to 85.6 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15-19 in 1999.

This was released on May 7, 2003.

thus, according to this, the teen pregnancy rate (for teens between 15 and 19) is presently 8.6%, not 40%.

Note that I've not gone to the Alan Guttmacher site to determine how they came up with these numbers.

[Joyce in the mts.]

Use the "about" button and take a look at who Alan Guttmacher was. Interesting fellow.

I found the site interesting.

http://www.agi-usa.org/index.html

[Greaseball]

Also, what about stats for pre-teen pregnancies? They don't seem to be included anywhere. And it can be a bit misleading to include ages 18 and 19, as these women may be out of high school, married, and have good jobs, which in the conservative eye may be less objectionable.

[miriam]

Looks like the sex ed classes aren't working.

Neither are the free condom handouts in the nurse's office.

Any other suggestions?

[phathui5]

Hey, I'm a pregnant, married 19-year old!

[Arduinna]

Please, if the rate of pregnancy was really 40% a year for all teens, then all teens would become pregnant at least once before they hit 20. Sorry, don't buy it.

Think back to your own highschools, were 40% of the girls pregnant? Remember that most gorls keep their babies and don't have abortion. I know I could only have a handful of girls that got pregnant as teens, and this was in "loose" CA.

[daylily]

I thought teen pregnancy rates were dropping, and they were certainly not at 40% back in the '80s when I was a teen.

[Delilah]

Pregnant "Teens"

My MIL was 3 months pregnant with my dh when she walked across the stage to receive her high school diploma. She was also 18 and married for four months.

Yeah, I think the "teen" term can be easily misused for political purposes. And 40% sounds unreal, especially when rates have been dropping for the last decade.

[Greaseball]

Well, I went to two different high schools - one was a small school in a redneck town in Alaska, and the other was a very liberal large school in Oregon.

While the majority of the girls did not get pregnant, a whole lot of them sure did! If I had to give a stat, I'd say 25% of the junior and senior class at both schools combined, with very few keeping the pregnancies. It was mostly at the smaller school, where everyone gets married right after they graduate anyway. And it wasn't the stereotype of the druggies and F-students, it was cheerleaders and popular types.

They usually had miscarriages or abortions, not births. If they were going to give birth they dropped out of school in the first trimester.

At the larger school, there were still a lot of pregnant girls but not as many. There was even a daycare center for students' babies, but there were not many students with babies. Again, most decided to terminate their pregnancies.

This was a school where the sex ed classes were taught by other students, not teachers, and condoms were distributed.

[Marlena]

Again, the Nat'l Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancies cited the figure of 8.56 percent per year, not 40%, using data from the Alan Guttmacher Institute. I'm sure the rate may vary from high school to high school.

[Vaxchoice]

Re: 40% of teens get pregnant each year...

Originally posted by Greaseball
Actually with the each year thing it said that was for the one million teens, and the 40% was girls under age 20 who have been pregnant at least once.

What are the sources of this info - high schools? Abortion clinics? OB offices?

Does anyone have a different statistic?

According to their website the 40% comes from:

Analysis of Henshaw, S.K., U.S. Teenage Pregnancy Statistics, New York: Alan Guttmacher Institute, May, 1996; and Forest, J.D., Proportion of U.S. Women Ever Pregnant Before Age 20, New York: Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1986, unpublished.

http://www.teenpregnancy.org/resourc...a/genlfact.asp

The official stats don't come anywhere near 40% - the site gives some details of where the data came from:

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/teen_stats.html

This site says 1 million pregnancies is 10%, not 40%:

http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/fb_teen_sex.html

" Each year, almost 1 million teenage women--10% of all women aged 15-19 and 19% of those who have had sexual intercourse--become pregnant."

Perhaps the teenpregnancy site people got their numbers confused?

Susan

[Greaseball]

It could be that I was the one who was confused...I am often confused...

But I do remember this other article about girls' sports in a particular large high school (the name and state escapes me) and the principal stated that one reason girls' sports are suffering is that 25% of the school's female students are mothers. (Meaning less time to spend after school.)

And he didn't say they were just pregnant, but that they were mothers!

[El Casey S]

Originally posted by Greaseball
It could be that I was the one who was confused...I am often confused...

But I do remember this other article about girls' sports in a particular large high school (the name and state escapes me) and the principal stated that one reason girls' sports are suffering is that 25% of the school's female students are mothers. (Meaning less time to spend after school.)

And he didn't say they were just pregnant, but that they were mothers!

And Principals, Teachers, Policemen, Presidents, always tell the truth :tongueincheek

[EFmom]

I don't find it difficult to believe that 25% of the girls in ONE particular high school are mothers. But that doesn't mean that this generalizes to the population as a whole.

DH teaches high school. He just had a 9th grader drop out due to pregancy. I would say this happens (or the father drops out to get a job) maybe once every third year. It's very sad.

[mamaley]

teenpregnancy.org is total propaganda, and it does a lot more harm than good, imho. they put out these disgusting ads (you could find them at places like tower records) where it showed one teen, with a single word, such as DIRTY, written over the person. Underneath it said "it's not fun changing dirty diapers" or something dumb like that...point is, they put labels across people who are supposed represent teen mamas and dads...others were FAILURE, LOSER, etc. Please don't take anything from them seriously.

[cumulus]

I think the statistic is saying that nearly 4 out of every 10 females becomes pregnant at least once before reaching the age of 20. A rate of 8.6% every year, for the reproductive life of the teens might add up to a 40% rate for all the teenaged years together.

[hydrangea]

That does sound high to me. I wonder if that could include repeat pregnancies?

I do know though that when I took "health" in high school in NYC, out of about 12 girls in the class, there were three that I KNEW had had abortions. Of the others, most of them I didn't know well enough to know that.

[Greaseball]

I don't agree with that organization's philosophy either. I just wanted to know some numbers.

I used to live in a town of about 40,000 people and even in a small town that size there were 11- and 12-year-olds who had given birth.

I'm sure most people have known a high-school age girl who was pregnant, maybe even several of them. I think anyone who has a daughter should be prepared for that possibility.

Of course, on the flip side, anyone who has a son should be prepared for it as well. Girls don't get pregnant by themselves!

[Quirky]

Originally posted by miriam
Looks like the sex ed classes aren't working.

Neither are the free condom handouts in the nurse's office.

Any other suggestions?

Oh, please. What sex ed and what condom handouts?? Sex ed in this country is becoming more and more of a joke, aka abstinence only. Other countries such as the Netherlands that have much better sex ed and free birth control available to all people who need it have much, much lower rates of teen pregnancy, not to mention unwanted pregnancy and abortion in any age class.

Cites:

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_sex_ed02.html

http://www1.iwon.com/home/health/hea...A_1205,00.html

http://society.guardian.co.uk/public...627575,00.html

http://www.allaboutsex.org/US_Falls_...Education.html

And there are many more, if you care to look.

Is it any coincidence that the US has one of the highest, if not the highest, teen pregnancy and overall unplanned pregnancy and abortion rates in the (so-called) advanced nations, and also has one of the most repressive attitudes towards real sex ed and contraceptive availability for teens? I think not.