Teen pregnancy back on the rise, CDC says

1-8-2009 Colorado:

The teen birthrate rose in more than half of states in '06. Colorado's rate edged up slightly.

The nation's teen pregnancy rate has increased for the first time in 15 years, leaving pregnancy-prevention experts wondering whether their tactics have fatigued.

"It may be that one of the great success stories in this nation of the past two decades may be coming to a close," said Bill Albert with the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "I think it is cause for great concern."

The teen birthrate increased in more than half of states in 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's latest data, released Wednesday.

In Colorado, the rate change wasn't statistically significant, but local experts say that's no reason to sigh in relief.

That's because Colorado lagged behind the rest of the nation in bringing down teen birthrates over the 15-year period.

While the national rate declined 32 percent from 1991 to 2006, Colorado's teen birthrate went down 24 percent.

"We haven't kept up," said Shannon Sainer, with the Colorado Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Parenting and Prevention. "There is a lot more work to be done."

She cited a lack of funding and political disagreement about sex education among the reasons for Colorado's lagging progress. Colorado's rate was 43.8 births per 1,000 teen girls in 2006, compared with 42.6 the previous year, according to CDC statistics.

That's higher than the national average of 41.9. And some Colorado counties are far above the national average, including Denver at 71 births per 1,000 teen girls and Otero County at 80.3.

States with the highest rates of decline — including California and New York — have statewide sex-education standards focused on abstinence and contraception, Sainer said.

Births to mothers ages 15 to 19 reached a four-decade high in 1990, when the national rate was 117 pregnancies per 1,000 teen girls.

A steady decline followed, as pregnancy prevention efforts intensified and President Bill Clinton suggested in his State of the Union speech that teen pregnancy was among the nation's most pressing social problems.

But that rate of decline began to slow in the early 2000s, said Stephanie Ventura, one of the authors of the report from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.

"That was probably an early warning sign," she said.

Now experts fear the teen birthrate may have bottomed out.

"We hope that this does serve as a wake-up call of sorts," Albert said. "All of our efforts going forward will need to be more creative and more intense."

The CDC's figures show teen birthrates were highest in the South and Southwest — Mississippi had the highest with 68.4 births per 1,000 teen girls. Rates were lowest in the Northeast, with New Hampshire at the top with 18.7 births per 1,000 teen girls. ..News Source.. by Jennifer Brown, The Denver Post