Teen Pregnancy Rates

[munchingfoo]

The STV news just said that 4% of UK girls become pregnant at 15 or below, does anyone know if this is correct? If so, we need to sort something out. That is beyond a joke.

[Delts]

I find that extremely hard to believe. I would have expected that to be about the rate of girls having sex at that age, not of pregnancies though. Maybe STV think condoms are evil and having any form of sex gets you pregnant protection or not?

[What?]

Whether it's true or not it gives weight to my argument that it should be law for contraceptives to be dissolved in Buckfast. Neds = gone within 18 years

[Gubbins]

.. 4% of UK girls become pregnant at 15 or below...

Sadly, I don't think this is made up. I've not been able to find any reliable figures on it, but judging by the people going through Edinburgh's hospitals (who get asked these sort of questions), that figure's probably not too far off the mark.

[Delts]

.. 4% of UK girls become pregnant at 15 or below...

Sadly, I don't think this is made up. I've not been able to find any reliable figures on it, but judging by the people going through Edinburgh's hospitals (who get asked these sort of questions), that figure's probably not too far off the mark.

I still find this unbelievable. Based on my school there should have been up to 8 girls pregnant by 15. There was probably about 10% (so 20 or so) that I suspect had had sex by that point but for 8 of them to have been pregnant. I guess part of this is what is counted as being pregnant? Unprotected sex and thus using the morning after pill or is this based on abortion rates, miscarries and full term pregnancies? Perhaps if the former then I could see how 4% is a possible if shocking figure, although then I'm sure the actual rate is lower since once isn't always enough to get you knocked up.

I guess I'm still struggling with this based on my peers now. At the time I remember how many were talking about sex and claims of having done it, but in later years I realised much of that was bullshitting. I personally just can't conceive the pregnancy rate being that high.

[Thalia]

Maybe it's 4% of those sexually active at that age, rather than 4% of all girls?

[Humphrey]

I think this a garbled version of a real statistic which is that among teenagers aged between 13 and 15, pregnancies rose by 4 per cent in 2005 from the previous year, to 7,462. no idea what % that is of the total conceptions, but I doubt its as high as 4% There have been about 23,556 underage conceptions (below age of 16) in England and Wales in the last three years, but 13,474 of those were aborted. Our teen pregnancy rate is still far below that of the U.S which is out of control, as anyone who has watched the Maury show can testify to (http://www.mauryshow.com/).

EDIT

Around 8,196 girls under 16 are estimated to have become pregnant in 2007, which represents just under 1% of all conceptions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/ ... nancy-rise

[Delts]

Thanks for the info Humphrey

[777]

Following on from Humphrey's edit:

The number of conceptions per 1,000 girls aged 12 to 15 has risen from 7.8 in 2006 to 8.1 in 2007, today's figures show.

Same Guardian source.

[macgamer]

Around 8,196 girls under 16 are estimated to have become pregnant in 2007, which represents just under 1% of all conceptions.

However the Guardian figure is just for England and Wales. Scotland's smaller population could make the proportion of teenage pregnancies more significant, hence the 4% quoted by STV.

[Dave the Explosive Newt]

Note that this is pregnancy, not teen birth rate (comparatively lower). The majority of these are aborted before they reach the end of the first trimester (i.e. before it becomes noticable to the casual observer).

[macgamer]

Note that this is pregnancy, not teen birth rate (comparatively lower). The majority of these are aborted before they reach the end of the first trimester (i.e. before it becomes noticable to the casual observer).

Well that's okay then.

[Andy Monkey B]

Seems to be a reasonable statistic to me, although I do come from the town which produced the UK's first pregnant 11-year old (although this is too young to count as a teen-pregnancy statistic). I think she'll probably be on to her second baby by now actually.

[Gubbins]

Official figures from the Office of National Statistics give:
England, 2007: 7715 conceptions in females aged 13-15 = 8.3 per 1000, 61.9% of which were legally aborted

According to Scotland.gov
Scotland, 2006: 8.1 per 1000 for the same statistic.
There is a strong deprivation gradient, with a factor of 10 in deliveries and a factor of 2 in abortions between the most- and least-deprived areas.
Tayside has a consistently high rate.

[David Bean]

Did anyone else see the question on Question Time last night about this? As I recall it ran something along the lines of:

"If teenage pregnancy rates are increasing, why should we have to pay their benefits when they can easily avoid getting pregnant in the first place?"

Of course everyone on the panel disputed the implication of the question, but I must say I was charmed by its rather childlike simplicity.

[ct3012]

Did anyone else see the question on Question Time last night about this? As I recall it ran something along the lines of:

"If teenage pregnancy rates are increasing, why should we have to pay their benefits when they can easily avoid getting pregnant in the first place?"

Of course everyone on the panel disputed the implication of the question, but I must say I was charmed by its rather childlike simplicity.

I was shocked when I heard that question, and equally shocked by the girl who looked about 14 who gave an opinion on the matter and suggested a purity ring movement in the country. I was very tempted to start arguing with the tv for how wrong and very Daily Mail the initial question was.

[Haunted]

It's no longer a problem it's a subculture.

[Senethro]

To an extent teenage pregnancy is a condition of surplus like obesity is. We've eliminated childhood malnutrition and now they're spawning younger.

[David Bean]

I was shocked when I heard that question, and equally shocked by the girl who looked about 14 who gave an opinion on the matter and suggested a purity ring movement in the country. I was very tempted to start arguing with the tv for how wrong and very Daily Mail the initial question was.

That girl was hilarious, particularly after David Dimbleby started interrogating her as to the intimate details of her sex life (or lack thereof, as it turned out).

But why were you so shocked by the question? It seems to me to be a thoroughly reasonable question to ask. We, the tax payers, are after all being compelled to shell out our hard earned money to fund this group of individuals, and if those of us who would prefer to keep the money rather than having it spent thus on our behalf are interested to discover with what justification they're being forced to do so, why shouldn't they ask a question like that? As far as I'm concerned, the state had better have a damn good reason for every single penny of mine it spends.

[macgamer]

That girl was hilarious, particularly after David Dimbleby started interrogating her as to the intimate details of her sex life (or lack thereof, as it turned out).

That does not sound very charitable. Surely the lack of a sex life at 14 should be commended, it addresses directly the cause of the problem that everyone in society acknowledges needs to be solved.

But why were you so shocked by the question? It seems to me to be a thoroughly reasonable question to ask. We, the tax payers, are after all being compelled to shell out our hard earned money to fund this group of individuals, and if those of us who would prefer to keep the money rather than having it spent thus on our behalf are interested to discover with what justification they're being forced to do so, why shouldn't they ask a question like that? As far as I'm concerned, the state had better have a damn good reason for every single penny of mine it spends.

My question to you David would be what do you think the most crucial function of a government is? I personally believe its most fundamental role is to protect its citizens. New born children are its citizens, are they not worth protecting? The issue of Israel's incursion into Gaza to stop the rockets being fired into its territory from Gaza, is grounded on the same principle: that the most fundamental duty of the state is to protect its citizens. If it fails in that regard then it has lost its reason for being.

Now I completely agree that there is a dilemma here, teenagers getting pregnant do so safe in the knowledge that they'll be supported by the state. There appears to be no disincentive to persuade them otherwise. I do not feel that the state taking away its protection from certain members of its citizens is the right way to go about solving this issue. In effect what it would be doing is to pretend they are no longer citizens, not, as I'm sure you would agree, a very palitable course of action.

This issue needs to be addressed much earlier. Sex education of one form or another is clearly a solution and is being implemented, but it does not, for whatever reason, seem to be abating the flood of teenage pregnancies. Perhaps society needs to re-evaluate its defence of that most sacred of 1960's principle's - free love or sex without consequences, because clearly society is finding it difficult to cope with those consequences.