Teen Birth Rates Up for First Time in 14 Years, U....( Birth rates among unmarried women C-s...),Health

Birth rates among unmarried women, C-section deliveries also hit new high last year

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 5 (HealthDay News) -- For the first time in 14 years, the number of teenagers having babies in the United States rose last year, according to a new government report released Wednesday.

That startling news was accompanied by additional data showing that last year also had record high rates for unmarried women having babies as well as for Caesarean deliveries.

The findings are in preliminary birth statistics compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and were based on 99 percent of all births in 2006.

"Any increase in teen pregnancy and teen births is significant and a cause for real concern," said Bill Albert, the deputy director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "I wouldn't call it a trend, but it's an alarming wakeup call," he added.

Albert thinks the increase in teen pregnancy is partly due to waning attention to the problem. "When you have a difficult social problem like teen pregnancy, it requires constant attention," he said. "The focus on teen pregnancy and teen births has lessened, because the news has been so consistently good since 1991."

Between 2005 and 2006, the birth rate for girls 15 to 19 rose 3 percent, from 40.5 births per 1,000 in 2005 to 41.9 births per 1,000 in 2006. This comes after 14 years of declining rates. During that time, teen births dropped 34 percent from a peak of 61.8 births per 1,000 in 1991, according to the report.

The biggest increases for 2006 were among black teens, where the rate rose 5 percent, followed by 4 percent for American-Indian teens, 3 percent for white teens and 2 percent for Hispanic teens.

"It's way too early to know if this is the start of a new trend," Stephanie Ventura, head of the Reproductive Statistics Branch at the CDC, said in a prepared statement. "But given t
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