Some good news
Since I often post about bad news, I thought I’d share this encouraging piece of news that came across my desk today. The CDC reported that births to very young teen mothers (ages 10-14) are down to 0.7 live births per 1,000 girls, half the rate they were in 1990, and the lowest rate since 1946. This is good news on all levels — girls this age aren’t physically ready to give birth (it’s dangerous both to the mother and the baby) and they’re not emotionally ready to be parents.
The interesting thing is that no one really knows why the birth rate has dropped in the last decade — either for this group of very young teens, or for teens in general (the birth rate for girls 15-19 is 41.7 per 1,000, down from 61.8 in 2000). The story is a complicated one, involving both better birth control (especially long-term hormonal approaches like depo-provera and norplant) and reduced sexual activity.
