Teen Pregnancy Rates Increase at Same Rate as Others

It seems that everyone decided to have more babies in 2006, including teen girls from age 15 through 19.

The summary of the CDC report is available as a news release, here. A 100-page report is available pdf containing more numbers and breakdown of the data is at this link.

I don’t believe that the information will answer any of the big political debates. The unmarried mother rate is too high, teens have too many babies too young, too few women begin prenatal care in the first 3 months, and too many had early births – both planned (scheduled C-sections) and unplanned.

We definitely need to discuss some of these numbers, however. 39% of children of white mothers, 50% of children of Hispanic mothers (who have half of all babies) and 70% of children of black mothers are born outside of marriage. The numbers of babies born to mothers under 15 years old should be a scandal (especially in the Black and Mexican and other Hispanic populations) and the focus of both public health and law enforcement. See pages 39 through 45) Note that the numbers of pregnancies under 15 have fallen precipitously since the 1980’s, but the Hispanic community still

The biggest surprise to me? 494 women had babies after 50!

By the way, 2006 was the first year in quite a while that the US birth rate has reached replacement level.