Even though the topic is not a laughing matter..I guess you can find a little bit of fun in everything..see funny>>>>>

Chart of Rates by Race

http://www.teenpregnancy.org/national/quiz.

If you click on the link above, you can take a quiz to see just how much you know about teens,sex,and pregnancy. Also the site has a bunch of other information on preventing teen pregnancy.

The Reality

Although its extremely difficult situation for teens to deal with, approximately 10% of girls under 19 get pregnant. Many girls are terrified to tell their parents that some never do, and the parents don't find out until the girl is in labor. And many get pregnant with the hopes that the father will stay around and in many cases when the father finds out he abandons the mom and the baby, Many teens once they find they are pregant experience many emotions, hopelessness,guilt,angry,depressed and shame. Speaking from personal experience it is the most difficult decision to make whether to keep the baby or not. And each teen that is in this situation has different life situations and many different reasons running through their minds when left to make this decision. For me it was based on what the father of my son had to say, considering he was older than me and I was young and thought I was in love. My parents, especially mother tried to convince me not to go threw with having the baby because she had me when she was a teen and it was not easy for her to raise me and she did not want to see me experience the same thing. In the end no matter who says what..These teen moms are going threw so many emotions that sometimes its fair to say they make the wrong decision. I had one teenage mom who was a student at a school for pregant teens, that I posed the questions to, What things played a role in her making a decision to have the baby? And her response was she "I don't know" she stated she was so taking over by emotion from friends, family, boyfriend that she made the decision without thinking it threw and although she loved of her baby, if she could she would have given it more thought and not have chosen to keep the baby. There are so many aspects in having a baby especially as a teen. How will you finish school? How will you work? How will you take care of your baby? What if your parents put you out? Or what about the teens who have no family or parents. Most teenage girls who get pregant and don't have family and parents who care or are involved usually make a decision to keep the baby to have someone to love them, someone to be with them when they feel lonely and they assume the baby will fill this void they have been missing from absent parents or boyfriends.

Each year, almost 750,000 teenage women aged 15–19 become pregnant. The teenage pregnancy
rate in this country is at its lowest level in 30 years, down 36% since its peak in 1990. A growing
body of research suggests that both increased abstinence and changes in contraceptive practice
are responsible for recent declines in teenage pregnancy.1
• The teenage pregnancy rate among those who ever had intercourse declined 28% between
1990 and 2002.
• The teenage birthrate in 2002 was 30% lower than the peak rate of 61.8 births per 1,000
women, reached in 1991.
• Between 1988 and 2000, teenage pregnancy rates declined in every state and in the
District of Columbia.
• By 2002, the teenage abortion rate had dropped by 50% from its peak in 1988.
• From 1986 to 2002, the proportion of teenage pregnancies ending in abortion declined
more than one-quarter from 46% to 34% of pregnancies among 15–19-year-olds.
• Among black women aged 15–19, the nationwide pregnancy rate fell by 40% between
1990 and 2002.
• Among white teenagers, it declined by 34% during the same time period.
• Among Hispanic teenagers, who may be of any race, the pregnancy rate increased
slightly from 1991–1992, but by 2002 was 19% lower than the 1990 rate.
In general, states with the largest numbers of teenagers also had the greatest number of teenage
pregnancies.

Introduction

Teenage pregnancy is technically defined as occurring when women under the age of 20 become pregnant, although in the United States, the term usually refers to girls younger than 18 years of age. The youngest mother on record is Linda Medina she was only 5 years old when she gave birth to a baby boy in 1939 (wikipedia). However, mosts girls do not become fully fertile until much later. Typically the average age is 12.5 for first mentrual period in the United States. There was a myth that teenagers pose a health risk to them or the child by being so young and undeveloped. This is not true, pregant teens between ages of 15-19 actually have the some experience, being pregant as women between the ages of 20-30. The teenage birth rate in United States is 43 per 1000 women. This is the highest in a developed country. If we included abortions it would be 74.5 per 1000 women.