State teen birth rate is lowest since 1970s

OLYMPIA – Washington’s teen pregnancy rate is at the lowest since the 1970s, well below the national average, according to a new survey.

A report released Thursday by Child Trends, a children’s advocacy group in Washington, D.C., said that in 2004, there were 31 births for every 1,000 Washington teens aged 15 to 19.

That was almost half the rate in 1970 and continued a decade-long drop in teen birth rates both nationally and in the state.

New Hampshire had the lowest teen birth rate in 2004, with 18 births per 1,000 female teens, compared with a national average of 41 births per 1,000. Texas had the highest rate with 63 births per 1,000. Washington was 12th lowest.

Celia Thomas, a family-planning health educator with Public Health Seattle & King County, told the Seattle Times that here and across the nation, teens are waiting longer to begin having sex. They have fewer sexual partners and are more likely to use condoms and other birth control.

Still, while the trend is heartening, the numbers are still too high, said Jennifer Manlove, who helped prepare the report.

American teens have the highest birth rate among all developed countries and their babies are more likely to be born prematurely or underweight than other newborns, the report says. The children also are more likely to be raised in poverty and more than twice as likely to have an unmarried mother.

The organization said teen birth rates are at recent historic lows for all ethnic and racial groups. But disparities still persist, with Hispanic and non-Hispanic black teens getting pregnant, giving birth and getting abortions at two and three times the rate of white teens, the report says.

Teen abortion rates have been declining even faster than teen birth rates, the organization said.

Between 1990 and 2002, the U.S. teen birth rate dropped by 28 percent while teen abortion rates fell by 46 percent, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Washington’s rate fell 41 percent from 1990 to 2004.

Out of every seven teen pregnancies in the U.S. in 2002, four ended with a live birth, two were aborted and one ended in miscarriage.