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Jump in Teen-Aged Mothers in 2006….A Blip or a Population Trend?
Cheree Cleghorn | January 7, 2009

News

Update: U.S. News and World Report
 
Excerpt from Bernadine Healy, M.D.’s column:
 
…”Kids who can make abstinence decisions do better in school, too, even when the comparison group was matched for social background and the desire to pursue education. Abstinent teens are far more likely to attend and graduate from college than those who are sexually active, based on an analysis of the NIH-supported National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health by Robert Rector and Kirk Johnson, researchers at the Heritage Foundation. Seems obvious: less distraction and more time to study.”But maybe it’s more. The researchers identified eight personality and behavioral traits that were associated with both abstinence and academic achievement—traits that to some extent may be inborn but can also be taught and reinforced regularly at home and at school:
  1. Future orientation, with a focus on long-term goals
  2. Willingness to postpone current pleasures for larger future rewards
  3. Perseverance, as in the ability to stick to a task or commitment
  4. A belief that current behavior can positively affect the future
  5. Impulse control, including ability to control emotions and desires
  6. Resistance to peer influence
  7. Respect for parental and social values
  8. Sense of self-worth and personal dignity

“The right kind of sex education of our young is really about more than sex. It’s about raising the kind of people we all want to be.”

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Federal statistics, based largely on birth certificates in 2006, shows a widespread and statistically significant increase in births to teen-aged mothers.

Although this data is for one year only, the trend is so broad-based as to suggest a general shift in teenage pregnancy and motherhood, officials said.

The “why” of this will take some time to try to understand. The story below explains what other kinds of information may help.

USA TODAY

…”It occurred among teens 15-17 and 17-19 and among whites, blacks and Hispanics, and now we know it occurred in most of the states,” says Moore, who has tracked teen births for 30 years. “It appears to be quite a general pattern, which makes me think it might not be a blip but a turn-around.”

…”Pinning down the reasons that rates have increased so widely isn’t easy. Some blame a more sexualized culture and greater acceptance of births to unmarried women. Others say abstinence-only sex education and a possible de-emphasis on birth control may play a part. And just where abortion fits into the puzzle won’t be known until late this year or early in 2010, when 2006 abortion data will become available from the New York City-based Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that has been tracking abortions since 1974. Government abortion statistics are based on voluntary state reports and do not include every state. (Emphasis added)

“Sarah Brown, CEO of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, says she is less inclined to believe abortion is driving higher teen birth rates and suggests that increases in high-profile unmarried births in Hollywood, movies and even politics is a significant factor for impressionable teens.

“In the last couple of years, we had Jamie Lynn Spears. We had Juno and we had Bristol Palin. Those three were in 2007 and 2008 and not in 2005 to 2006, but they point to that phenomenon,” she says.”

Source: USA TODAY,  January 7, 2009

Source: U.S. Census Data, 2009

Source:  National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health Data