Teenage girls having fewer babies

The good news is that less American teen girls are giving birth. The numbers are down 40% in that two decades according to new numbers released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Still, 400,000 young women are having babies each year - that’s 1,110 per day - and that’s way more than other industrialized nations. That 4% of American young women having 10% of American babies each year.

Despite the normalcy portrayed through the media about a single, teen mother, the cost of bringing a baby into the world to be carried for by an immature parent is huge. There is a high emotional, financial, physical and even societal cost for doing so.

The report shows that African American and Hispanic young women have double the risk of becoming a mother than their Caucasian peers.

A female baby with a teen mother has a 33% chance of also becoming a teen mother. The CDC calls it a “continuing cycle of teen pregnancy”. The high school graduation rate for teenage girls without babies is 90%. For teen girls with children, only half graduate. Teenage births cost American taxpayers $9 billion in associated costs.

Only 9% of sexually kid are using birth control. Only 27% of boys and 44% of girls are talking to their parents about birth control and abstinence.

Talking to your kids about sex and pregnancy prevention is key to their health and long term opportunities. It’s great news fewer are having sex and that fewer girls are giving birth, but there is still a ways to go to protect our kids from themselves.

Source: CDC, MedicalNewsToday