Family Planning Plus

The United States has the highest teen pregnancy and birth rates of comparable countries.  In 2008, our teen birth rate (number of teen births per 1,000 teens) was two times higher than the United Kingdom’s, 10 times higher than Switzerland’s, and over three times higher than that of our neighbor, Canada.  However, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate, despite a 3% increase between 2005 and 2006, declined by 37% between 1991 and 2009.  Despite this impressive decline, it is still the case that one out of every three teen girls will become pregnant at least once before the age of 20.  Approximately 750,000 American teens get pregnant every single year resulting in approximately 400,000 teen births.