US Teen Birth Rate Hits a 70-Year Low — Health Check

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday that the teen birth rate in the United States dropped to an all-time low in 2010.

Last year, there were 34.3 births per 1,000 teenagers aged 15-19, a nine percent drop from 2009 and the lowest rate in the nearly 70 years such data has been collected. Birth rates also dropped to historic lows for mothers aged 10-14.

Bill Albert, spokesman for the Washington-based nonprofit National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, said while rates have dropped 44 percent since peaking in 1991, last year’s figure “was really a dramatic one-year decrease” and represents “extraordinary progress on an issue that many consider intractable and inevitable.”

[Reuters]