To wonder why teenage pregnancy rates have gone down

[Reallytired17]

here

Anecdotally, I remember four girls having babies in Year 11 in 1999.

Is it to do with better access to contraception, or are more pregnancies being terminated?

This is such an interesting thread - it's particularly good to hear bananafish's input, as someone who worked on this. I listened to that Radio 4 documentary when it was on, and thought it was fascinating. It's also telling that most people don't know there's been such a big drop - I suppose it doesn't fit with the 'we're all in moral decline, the world's going to hell in a handcart!' worldview that a lot of people embrace.

I do think LARC rates must be a big part of it. I've seen lots of women say, both in real life and on here, that they took the pill perfectly but 'I was just in that group that it doesn't work for'. Contraceptives that don't involve user error, such as the implant, have shown just how tiny that group is - very few people are magically immune to the hormones in the pill, and the vast majority of contraceptive failure is user error. Removing that is bound to have a huge impact.

My teens never leave the bloomin house to get knocked up!

One of the most interesting episodes of that Radio 4 documentary, incidentally, focused on the idea that there's a growing stigma about teenage pregnancy among teenagers themselves - that it used to be something that middle-aged politicians said was bad (and who cares what they think?) but that now it's considered uncool and a bit pathetic by their peers. There was a real divergence in the views of those who worked with young people, as I remember - some thought that this cultural change was a great thing as it discouraged teenage pregnancy, some thought that it came at too high a price for those who did get pregnant, who found themselves increasingly demonized and stigmatized.

And to all thosr who think teenage girls got pregnant to get a house...pretty much the last thing on my mind when I was pregnant at 16.

Children now have a lot less freedom now than we did 30 years ago, not sure if teenagers are the same. People are more open and accepting of teenagers being on contraception now. When I was young me and a lot of my friends were having unprotected sex because we were scared that the gp, pharmacist or whoever would tell our mums that we were buying condoms/on the pill.

I work in a school and have known of 2 girls in the last 2 years to be pregnant, at 13 and 14. Unfortunately both the pregnancies were predictable as both girls had behavioural and social issues and were completely disengaged from education.

My own Dd19(just) didn't have her first boyfriend until 17.5 and opted for an iud immediately. She's still with him after 18 months and studying at Uni.

The implant. Probably only the implant.

(There's a study somewhere showing the drop in teen pregnancy rates almost exactly correlates with availability and use of implant.)

Well if my ds is anything to go by he spends a large chunk of his free time on his xbox. Silver lining of screen addiction I suppose. At least he plays plenty of sport too.

Better education and lots of schools now providing a sexual health service. We provide free condoms and pregnancy testing.

@corythatwas I agree. My sister's friend, at about 15, said the girls got pregnant to have something to love that would love them back, and the boys got the girls pregnant because it showed they were real men

A lot of them didn't get any social housing and if they had it would likely have been in one of the most deprived estates in Wales so not exactly living a life of luxury, and a definite few steps down from where we grew up.

sofa, it might not have been on your mind but it was certainly on my friends minds! They're still my friends now more than 20 years later and would still say the same thing.

They weren't stupid and I think most of them made the right decision. They generally came from homes which were less than happy and wanted to get away from their parents. They weren't particularly ambitious and weren't going to go into high flying jobs that would have got them a nice house, but they wanted to have children and knew it would give them a secure place to bring them up.

It was a pragmatic decision and one which generally worked out. Lots of other women plan their kids around what they do or don't want to do with their careers and what sort of housing they can access and they're no different.

In fact it was often a sensible decision as other girls who got tiny private let flats and low waged jobs then found themselves pregnant just a few years later in their early 20s were in a much worse situation in terms of being able to provide suitable affordable accommodation for their children.

I wish I had done the same thing sometimes, but my ovaries weren't playing ball.

I think teenagers on the whole are more "good" than they were when I was young.

I work in a Pupil Referal Unit and our kids are all damaged in some way. We never see a child and think "how did you end up here?" There's always something awful in their history. More than "just" poverty and poor parenting or a bit of rebelliousness. We do see teen pregnancies, despite PSHE being our main core subject with sex and relationship having a key focus. Among our girls, it is still the old stereotype of needing someone to love them (the father) and needing someone to love (the baby). The prospect of having to do it with no money or home isn't daunting because in many cases that's what they're used to

However, in a more mainstream environments, teens don't seem to drink anything like as much as was common 15 years ago and they're much more positive in their relationships with each other. e.g. Having any academic ambition got you bullied as a "boffin" in the 80s, today children admire it.

Also, I have noticed in my own teenage children genuine boy/girl friendships are far more "normal", they do genuinely seem to respect each other.

Lots of reasons for me the one that makes a lot of sense is what snowbelled said:

"A lot of teenagers hardly go out or if they do its to a friends house where adults are. We used to go out two or three times a week. There were lots more opportunity to go to pubs (I used to get served at 14 no bother and looked it). We will spend lot of time in parks and at houses with no adults so there was lots of people having underage sex. Nowafdays young people dont go out so much and if they do it is for activitesike the cinema or bowling where it much harder to have sex."

Drinking culture amongst young people is completely different now and it resonates with me, that that would have a difference. I have heard 1 in 4 young people are teetotal. To me it's obvious this will mean less sex / less uncareful sex.

At the same time the whole contraception thing (hormones puberty til death and really what do they do to us?) is a massive area.

Obviously an unwanted pregnancy is a disaster.

But the effects on girls of all these hormones is non-trivial. There have been conversations about this in the media which is good. And some more studies recently.

Sex education has hugely improved in recent years and starts much younger than it used to which is an enormous help. It's also much easier to access contraception - free condoms are available in many places and girls are much better educated about the pill and implant etc.

Abortions are still quite rare for teenage girls. The group most likely to seek a termination are actually women who are married.

My DS1 went to his first adult free house party just before Christmas. We had lots of conversations about staying safe etc (things my parents would never have talked to me about) and I offered him condoms, which he refused to take "don't be ridiculous mum, all the girls there are my friends"

Because some of them realise it's not a straightforward way of getting their own council home anymore, which was a bit more prevalent back then. Benefit cuts.

Also better education and access to contraception.

Incidentally sofa, just to add to that, if I had done the same thing I would still be able to afford to live in London and be close to my family who need care instead of hundreds of miles away!

Also, most of them had no idea what they wanted to do and had only experienced school. By the time their children were at school they had more idea of what they wanted to do and retrained and went back to work without ever having to set their careers back for maternity leave because they'd got it out of the way.

I don't think there is anything wrong with bearing the housing situation in mind like that when you're thinking about when you will start a family. I think that you'd be sillier not to consider it. My friends made decisions which worked out for them and in a lot of ways have proved to be really smart choices.

Very interesting thread. Our DD is 13 and her attitude is quite different to mine when I was a teen. She is adopted and has ADHD and ASD so is classed as ' very venerable'.
She is very sexually aware and uses sexual innuendo as a way of 'making friends' and sounding funny. She is also well developed for her age. Obviously we are very concerned about her wellbeing.

She meet a 15 year old boy at a youth camp she was at. He had wanted to kiss her but she said no! - something I would never have done and would have jumped at the chance 30 years ago. But apparently kissing is a 'big' thing to let anyone do now. They texted each other after the camp ( I have access to her phone and can check what she is doing). She's not very socially aware and not very good at 'conversation' so it fizzled out.
I think there is much more care being made with 'venerable' teens in school than there ever was and I think getting pregnant is no longer the be all and end all it used to be.
Hopefully there will be fewer mothers like our children's BM who was also a very venerable teen when she had children and lived a very chaotic life style and was always more interested in going out and meeting men than looking after her children.

I was a teen mom back in the early 2000s. Ds1 at 18 dd 18 months later when I was 20.
The only sex ed I really had was year 7 at school but it was very basic changes as you grow up where babies come from.
No talk from parents.
I picked up bits from magazines and friends who were NEVER wrong
Me and my then boyfriend would just clear me out afterwards and that would be that.

I've sat down with ds1 and had a conversation about relationships, sex, contraception, drugs, alcohol the lot.
He was highly embarrassed throughout but I wanted to make sure he knew about the real world and what was going on out there. I've drummed it into him that I am available to talk about ANYTHING but he's so shy he probably won't.
I no he's also having lessons in school to teach the more emotional side of relationships which I think is fantastic.

My 18 year old son and his just 20 year old girlfriend are expecting their first in July, they have no house but both work

No matter how many times I talked to him about contraception, how having a baby early on is not a good idea, how things are hard enough these days they were still adamant they were going to have a baby. Main reason? Quite a few of their friends had babies at 16, 17 and 18 and have got houses with the council. He has adhd and asd and is extremely impulsive and she had an awful upbringing.

I fucking despair.

Older teens having babies is pretty common here

My teens never leave the bloomin house to get knocked up!

Yeah that one.

A few years of Conservative government have made living on benefits a little less attractive.

@badbadhusky

Got any evidence to suggest anything like this is occuring or simply a boring and trite response playing to your imagined audience?

Teenage girls especially seem more clued up these days. Better access to contraception & education. The girls in my form who were pregnant at 15 all were disengaged and had much older boyfriends - in their 20s. That alone screams abuse nowadays.

Last year Facebook informed me that all four (one had twins) children went to Uni. Oh so proud of those teenage mums and their children.

So the boys are all stoned and when they do have the energy to drag themselves away from their xboxes theyre having porn sex which isn't getting anyone pregnant and the girls are all either on instagram and don't want to get fat for their photos or are too busy studying and aspiring to careers?