Births by teen mothers at record low in U.S.

Hyattsville, MD, United States (4E) – Births to teen mothers in the U.S. continued to drop with 31.3 births per 1,000 girls and women aged 15 to 19 from 2010 to 2011, according to the latest data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

The rate represents an 8 percent drop in teen births in a single year, said the NCHS report appearing in Monday’s online issue of the journal Pediatrics. In 2010, the U.S. had a teen birth rate of 37.9 per 1,000 women.

Explaining the data, NCHS statistician Brady Hamilton said more than a million fewer babies were born from 2008 to 2011.

Laura Lindberg, a senior researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, said teenage births are down across almost all states and among all ethnic groups.

National Institutes of Health pediatrician Dr. Ellen Rome, head of the Center for Adolescent Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, attributed the drop in teen births to more effective birth control method particularly the use of intra-uterine device and condom.

Meanwhile, more than 3.9 million babies were born in the country in 2011, 1 percent less than the previous year and 4 percent less than in 2009, said Hamilton, according to ABC News. The figure translated to a birth rate of 12.7 per 1,000 people, a record low.

The general fertility rate or number of births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 fell 1 percent to 63.2 in 2011 from 64.1 in 2010. The rate is also a record low.

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