Teen pregnancies jump in 26 states
And this doesn’t even count Jamie Lynn Spears and Bristol Palin.
The birth rate for girls ages 15 to 19 increased about three percent in 2006 from the previous year, according to the latest government data. It’s the first nationwide increase in 15 years.
States in the South and Southwest had the highest teen birth rates, according to the analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The “winner” on this list was Mississippi, 68.4 births per 1,000 female teens, followed by New Mexico (64.1) and Texas (63.1). Where were the more responsible teens? The report listed New Hampshire with 18.7 births per 1,000 and Vermont with 20.8 births per 1,000.
Sarah Brown, CEO of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, told USA Today that she blames Hollywood, politics and our increasingly sexualized culture for encouraging all these unmarried births. She’s not encouraged about the stats for 2007 and 2008. “In the last couple of years, we had Jamie Lynn Spears. We had Juno and we had Bristol Palin,” she said.
For the record, Bristol has plenty of company in her home state. In 2006, Alaska had 44.3 births per 1,000 teens, a jump of 19 percent from the previous year.
