According to a new study released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the proportion of American high school students who have had sexual intercourse has also fallen 11 percent during the 1990's. Despite these recent declines, teen pregnancy remains a significant problem in communities across the country. Most teen pregnancies are unintended. Each year, approximately one million pregnancies occur among teenagers aged 15-19. Almost 200,000 teens 17 years and younger have children.
Teenage mothers are less likely to complete high school and more likely to be poor.
Based on a 1996 Robin Hood Foundation report on the costs of adolescent childbearing, only about one-third of teenage mothers receive a high school diploma. According to the Annie B. Casey Foundation, about 80 percent of the children born to unmarried teenagers who dropped out of high school are poor. In contrast, just eight percent of children born to married high school graduates aged 20 or older are poor. Infants of teenage mothers are often low birth weight and die at disproportionately high rates. HHS believes that all teens need to hear the message that abstinence is the surest way to prevent pregnancy, HIV and sexually transmitted disease.