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Teen Pregnancy Statistics

How common is teen pregnancy? What are the current trends of young women when faced with the choice between adoption, abortion, and raising a child? Are most teen pregnancies a result of failed protection, or are they a result of not using protection at all?

Find your answers to questions about teen pregnancy here! Our new teen pregnancy statistics database (launched June 2002) is growing to encompass all statistics and factual information about teen mothers, their children, their lives. Research replaces and defeats the common myths and stereotypes...

We try to search for accurate Teen Pregnancy Stats, but please remember that this stats page is only intended as a brief summary of the pregnancy rates and trends in the research. If you are one of the many young women / young moms who are looking for information for a research paper or project, please ensure that you visit the direct sources for your statistics. We have provided links to all the sources we site, as well as additional sources for statistics and information. Be sure that you read complete articles to get the complete information. We hope you find our summary helpful as a starting point.

Also, please note that the YoungMommies.com staff are *not* available to answer the hundreds of requests for "homework help" we receive each year, so please do not send us a request to help with your teen pregnancy homework or project! We've created this stats page to try to help you out instead, so please take advantage of this resource.

Teen Pregnancy Stats


National Teen Pregnancy Clock is from Campaign for our Children and shows a summary of the U.S. teen pregnancy statistics.

Canadian Teen Pregnancy Statistics:

  • Number of women aged 15 to 19 who had a live birth: 19,724 (1997)
  • Number of women aged 15 to 19 who had an abortion: 21,233 (1997)
  • It is estimated that 10% of pregnancies are ending in miscarriage or still birth, but it is likely that the fetal loss rate is higher when you account for the under-reporting of these occurences.
  • The pregnancy rate in Canada in 1997 was 42.7 per 1,000 women
  • Divided by age groups, older teens (18 to 19) have a higher rate of pregnancy (68.9 per 1,000 women) than younger teens (15 to 17), who have a lower rate (25.5 per 1,000)
  • Province-to-province rates of pregnancy vary, with higher rates in Yukon and the Northwest Territories, and lower rates in the Maritime provinces.
* these stats from Statistics Canada - Health Reports, Vol. 12, No. 1

United States:

  • Number of Live Births Annually (15-19 Year Olds): 468,990 (2000)
  • Birth Rate (15-19 Year Olds): 48.5 live births per 1,000 population (2000)
* these stats from NCHS - National Center for Health Statistics (U.S.A.)
  • Precent of teen pregnancies that are unplanned: 78% (1998)
  • Precent of U.S. births that are to teens: 13% (1997)
  • Percent of teen moms who will have a second child within a year after her first: 25% (1994)
* these stats from Teen Sex and Pregnancy article

FACT SHEET ON ADOLESCENTS WHO HAVE BABIES*

  • Fifty percent of adolescents who have a baby become pregnant again within two years of the baby's birth.
  • Twenty-five percent of adolescents who have one baby have a second baby within two years of the first baby's birth.
  • In 1996, 22 percent of all births to 15-19 year old young women in the US were repeat births, i.e. a second birth or higher.
  • The second baby born to an adolescent mother is at higher risk than the first baby to be low birth weight.
  • Adolescent mothers who return to school after the first birth are less likely to have a repeat birth in the first year after the first birth.
  • The children of adolescent mothers are at increased risk for being a teen parent themselves.
  • The children of adolescent mothers are at increased risk for dropping out of school as adolescents.
  • The children of adolescent mothers who continue to have close ties with their fathers while they are growing up have better outcomes in education and employment as adults.
* prepared by Marianne E. Felice, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics, University of Massachusetts, Board of Directors, Campaign For Our Children

For more information...

Don't forget that our page is only intended as a brief summary of the pregnancy rates and trends in the research. Check the direct sources and read complete articles to get the most accurate information!

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