Teen pregnancy rate higher here than statewide

The teen pregnancy rate in Missouri and Pettis County are higher than the national average, a new study shows.

A report issued Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control revealed both the state and national teen birth rate rose.

The study examined birth certificates from 2006.

In the same year, the birth rate in Pettis County topped both figures, according to the 2007 Missouri Kids Count survey.

The birth rate for mothers aged 15 to 19 in Pettis County was nearly 75 per 1,000 births, according to Kids Count.

The CDC report puts the Missouri birth rate at about 46 per 1,000, an increase of 8 percent from the previous year. The national birth rate for teens was about 42 per 1,000, a 3 percent increase.

The birth rate rose in 26 states.

Jeanette Pahlow, director of Birthright in Sedalia, said that she thinks the teen birth rate is rising because of  “the glamorization of pregnancy in the movies and in the lives of movie and TV personalities that these young girls see.”

Birthright is an international organization that offers counseling to women dealing with unplanned pregnancies, and advocates adoption.

Movies, music and television exploit sexuality and promote sex outside marriage, she said.

“We like to see them make better choices and put that area of their life off until they're older,” she said.

Some experts have blamed the national increase on increased federal funding for abstinence-only health education that does not teach teens how to use condoms and other contraception. They said that would explain why teen birth rate increases have been detected across much of the country and not just in a few spots.

There is debate about that, however. Some conservative organizations have argued that contraceptive-focused sex education is still common, and that the new teen birth numbers reflect it is failing.

Other factors include the escalating cost of some types of birth control and their unavailability in some communities, said Stephanie Birch, who directs maternal and child health programs for the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services.

A variety of factors influences teen pregnancy rates, including culture, poverty and racial demographics. For those and other reasons, children in mostly white New England likely would delay child birth, said David Landry, a researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based organization which supports abortion rights and gathers research on sexual and reproductive health.

“It’s more costly for youth in the Northeast to have a teen birth than for youth in the South, in terms of opportunities they’ll miss,” he said.

—  This report was compiled by Democrat staffer Allison Elyse Gualtieri and by the Associated Press.