Teen Birth Rate Drops to Record Low

I met Brandy when she was 17-years-old. A shapely girl with an upturned nose and blond hair, she was living with a friend of my mom's. She was a runaway from Texas and moved in with Carol, a practical nurse who used to date my older brother. I ended up hiring Brandy for the restaurant that I was working at the time. She was a good worker, but she did tend to flirt with the customers a little too much.

Brandy ended up living down the road from me, sharing an apartment with one of her girlfriends from work. Then one day she told me that she was pregnant. The father was a 17-year-old boy that she had met while working. He didn't have a job and liked to party. They started going out and one thing led to another.

Brandy had the baby on a cold January morning. It was a bouncing baby boy who weighed in a 7.6 pounds. He had bright blue eyes that followed you around the room. I had my doubts about the boyfriend and also doubts about how well the two of them could take care of the baby, being so young themselves.

My doubts were well founded. One night they had an argument about something. The boyfriend was holding the baby and dropped it deliberately on the ground right in front of the mother. Fortunately, the baby was wrapped in so many blankets that it wasn't seriously hurt. Brandy showed up at my door late that night with tears streaming down her face. She never saw the boyfriend again after that.

Teenage pregnancy is an epidemic in this country. And part of the reason why is our outdated morals. Other countries like Holland that give out condoms to all of the high school students and show them how to use them have much lower rates of teenage pregnancy. Abstinence does not work. It's been proven time and time again. Teens who are raised in homes that insist on abstinence may not get pregnant but they will have other forms of sex.

But something has caused the birth rate among teens to drop to its lowest point ever. According to Medical News Today:

"From 42.5 births per 1,000 in 2008 to 39.1 per 1,000 in 2009, the American teenage birth rate dropped last year to a record low ever since record began seventy years ago, says a report issued by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)."

These numbers were based on birth records taken from all 50 states and all of the U.S. territories. Record low birth weights of the babies that were born may suggest that the health of the mother and nutrition may be a factor accounting for the low birth rates. Other studies have suggested that sperm counts among men are also at their lowest points since we have been able to measure them.

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/212216.php