each year, 10% of all women aged 15-19
become pregnant.
Every year, 1 in 5 women aged 15-19 who
have had sex become pregnant.
78% of teen pregnancies are unintended.
Teen pregnancies account for about 1/4 of
all accidental pregnancies annually.
13% of all u.S. Births are to teens.
Steep decreases in the pregnancy rate
among teens in the early-to-mid 1990s was
from decreased sexual activity and more
effective contraceptive practices.
6 in 10 teen pregnancies occur among 18-19
year-olds.
Teen pregnancy rates are much higher in
the united states than in many other
developed countries--twice as high as in
england and wales or canada, and nine
times as high as in the netherlands or
japan.
Teenage pregnancy remains a significant
health and social problem in the united
states despite decreases in incidence over
the past decade. Almost a million
teenagers become pregnant each year,
resulting in almost 500,000 births,
125,000 miscarriages and 264,000 abortions
high fertility and low rates of
contraceptive use put sexually active
adolescent females at high risk for
pregnancy. A sexually active teen who
does not use contraception has a 90%
chance of becoming pregnant within 1 year
a study of 7000 females found that girls
aged 15 to 19 were more likely than older
women to use contraception intermittently
or not at all. Teens also have been
shown to use less effective methods of
contraception, such as withdrawal and
spermicides
increased use of contraception accounts
for 75% of the decline in teen pregnancy
rates, but many teens do not use
contraception consistently and correctly.
More than 30% of adolescents do not use
any contraception the first time they have
intercourse
the majority of boyfriends leave when
their girlfriend has a baby. 78% of
births to teens occur outside of marriage.
The fathers of babies born to teenage
mothers are likely to be older than the
women.
About 1 in 5 infants born to unmarried
minors are fathered by men 5 or more years
older than the mother.
The least amount of father involvement in
u.S. Society has been observed in two
groups of fathers: poor, unmarried teenage
fathers and upper-class fathers in
traditional nuclear families. Teen dads
in u.S. Society are often undereducated
and underemployed. Therefore, they
cannot make a meaningful contribution to
the economic security of their children.
Poor teen fathers do not have meaningful
benefits to offer their child's mother.
As the reciprocity hypothesis would
predict, these fathers are often minimally
involved in the lives of their children.
Although an adolescent girl's body may be
ready for reproductive activity in a
functional sense, there can be a marked
delay in the incorporation of physical
changes into her psychological and
emotional awareness. An increasing
number of young people are confronted by
sexual feelings and opportunities for
sexual experimentation for which they are
not cognitively or psychosocially
prepared; this lack of preparation
increases the vulnerability of american
teenagers to the harmful consequences of
early sexual experimentation, pregnancy,
and sexually transmitted disease.
External influences make up an important
factor contributing to early onset of
sexual behavior among adolescents and to
teenage pregnancy. The suggestive and
persuasive nature of television,
magazines, films, videos, and the actions
of older children or siblings in the
immediate environment cannot be
overstated. Teenagers can "become
fertile long before they understand their
own bodies, and this may increase in them
a physical awareness of sexuality long
before emotional maturity has had time to
develop".
Although many teen pregnancies result in
poor health for both mother and baby, good
nutrition and prenatal care results in
better pregnancy outcomes than those of
older women.
In the usa the abortion rate among
teenagers declined substantially from 40.6
per 1 000 women aged 15-19 years in 1990
to 29.2 in 1996
among contracepting teens, 37% use a
condom
in their first experience with intercourse
as adolescents, more than two-thirds of
men and women rely on the condom.
Studies show that condoms break at a rate
of anywhere from 0-6.7% of the time, per
use.
On average, one in fifty condoms will
break, and over twice that number will
slip off during vaginal intercourse.
Oil-based lubricants like cold cream,
mineral oil, cooking oil, petroleum jelly,
and even yeast infection creams, can cause
the latex to rupture.
Spermicidal condoms have not been proven
more effective than non-spermicidal
condoms.
Most men experience reduced sensitivity
during intercourse, some men find they
cannot retain an erection when a condom is
used, and condoms may affect the
spontaneity of intercourse.
Some men and women find the latex
irritating due to allergy (1-3% of persons
are latex-sensitive, as well as 6-7% of
surgical workers)
spermicidal condoms can worsen the
allergenic properties of the latex.
In preventing pregnancy, condoms have a
standardized failure rate of 14.7% over
the course of a year.
For teens not living together, 14-23% of
condom users will experience an unplanned
pregnancy over the course of a year.
For teens living together, over 50% of
condom users will experience an unplanned
pregnancy over the course of a year.
Most very young teens have not had
intercourse: 8 in 10 girls and 7 in 10
boys are sexually inexperienced at age 15.
The likelihood of teenagers' having
intercourse increases with age; however,
about 1 in 5 young people do not have
intercourse while teenagers.
More than half of 17-year-olds have had
intercourse.
Precocious sex refers to sexual
intercourse initiated before 16 years of
age. In the united states, more than 30%
of adolescent females are sexually
precocious, and nearly 70% have engaged in
sexual intercourse by age 18
previously abused teens are more likely to
have partners 5 years their senior and may
be more likely to attempt pregnancy with
these adult partners.
While 93% of teenage women report that
their first intercourse was voluntary,
one-quarter of these young women report
that it was unwanted.
It is estimated that between 35% and 60%
of teenage mothers were sexually abused or
had unwanted or coercive sexual
experiences before pregnancy
the younger women are when they first have
intercourse, the more likely they are to
have had unwanted or involuntary first sex
-- 7 in 10 of those who had sex before age
13, for example.
Childhood and adolescent sexual abuse is
considered a potential contributor to
stds. Sexual abuse includes contact or
noncontact molestation, coercive sexual
experiences, attempted rape, and rape.
The prevalence of stds in sexual abuse
victims varies depending on the prevalence
in the community, the type of std, and the
type of abuse.
Up to 12% of sexually abused children may
be infected with stds, and chlamydia and
gonorrhea are the most frequently found
stds among sexually abused adolescent
females
a study of middle- and high school
females, found that the mean age at first
intercourse was 14.1 years. As the
percentage of teenagers initiating sex at
young ages increases, their likelihood of
exposure to multiple partners also rises,
which increases their risk for stds.
