Teen Pregnancy

3 in 10 teen American girls will get pregnant at least once before age 20. That’s nearly 750,000 teen pregnancies every year. Parenthood is the leading reason that teen girls drop out of school. More than half of teen are mothers that never graduate from high school or neither go to college. Less than 2 percent of teen moms earn a college degree by age 30.
About a quarter of teen moms have a second child within 24 months of their first baby.
IN The United States we has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the western industrialized world. From 1990 to 2008, the teen pregnancy rate had decreased 42 percent (from 117 to 68 pregnancies per 1,000 teen girls).
In 2008 the teen pregnancy rate among African-American and Hispanic teen girls, age 15 to 19, was over two and a half times higher than the teen pregnancy rate among white teen girls of the same age group. A sexually active teen who doesn’t use contraceptives has a 90 percent chance of becoming pregnant within a year.
Almost 50 percent of teens have never considered how a pregnancy would affect their lives. Teens had fewer babies in 2010 than in any year since the mid-1940s.

Babies are great—they’re cute and cuddly and they love you. But they’re also needy and selfish—they want all your time and attention and they want it NOW. Be honest—there are a million things you'd rather be doing than changing a diaper, right? So if you decide to have sex, have you considered the consequences of getting pregnant/ causing a pregnancy? Weirdly enough, almost 50% of teens have never thought about how a pregnancy would affect their lives even though having a baby could be one of the most life-changing things to happen to them. Consider this:

School comes second:

•Parenthood is the leading reason why teen girls drop out of school; after all, it’s really difficult to juggle homework and a baby. Less than half of teen mothers ever graduate from high school and fewer than 2% earn a college degree by age 30.
•Children of teen mothers do worse in school than those born to older parents—they are 50% more likely to repeat a grade, are less likely to complete high school than the children of older mothers, and have lower performance on standardized tests.
•About one-fourth of teen moms have a second child within 24 months of the first birth—which can further delay their ability to finish school or keep a job.
A baby won’t make him stay:

•You may think having a baby will make your relationship even stronger, but the fact is 8 out of 10 fathers don't marry the mother of their child. It's also true that these absent fathers pay less than $800 annually for child support, often because they are poor themselves and can’t afford legitimate support payments.
It’s hardest on the kids:

•More than half of all mothers on welfare had their first child as a teenager. In fact, two-thirds of families begun by a young, unmarried mother are poor.
•Children who live apart from their fathers are 5 times more likely to be poor than children with both parents at home.
•The daughters of young teen mothers are 3 times more likely to become teen mothers themselves.
•The sons of teen mothers are twice as likely to end up in prison.
Now you know why having a baby too early is a bad idea.