- Every year over 750,000 teenagers get pregnant.
- 1/3 of all girls in the U.S. get pregnant while still in their teenage year.
- Unmarried teenagers account for 24 percent of all unmarried expectant mothers.
- More than 2/3 of all teenagers who have a baby will not graduate from high school.
- Billions of dollars are spent taking care of teenage mothers and their children.
- Teenage parents are more likely to be in the poverty bracket.
On the flip side:
- Millions of dollars are spent on teen pregnancy prevention programs.
- Teen births have dropped by almost a third since the beginning of the 1990s.
- In 2002 the abortion rate among teenagers was 50 percent lower than 1988.
- Among black teenagers, the pregnancy rate dropped around 40 percent since 1990.
- Among Hispanic teenagers pregnancy rates dropped around 19 percent since 1990.
- Among white teenagers, the pregnancy rate dropped around 34 percent since 1990.
These statistics show that sex education and teen pregnancy prevention programs are helping to reduce the number of teen pregnancies and births. Hopefully with continued support these programs can continue to help reduce these numbers.
As mentioned above, billions of dollars are spent taking care of teenage mothers and their children while only millions are needed to provide good prevention program.
If you are a pregnant teen (or may think you may be pregnant) or a parent of a teen in one of these situations know that you are not alone and there are many options and lots of help available to you. We are going to cover some of those options in upcoming posts.
