Downward Trend in Teen Birth Rates will not Result in Fewer Babies Born to Teens in Connecticut, say State Teen Pregnancy Prevention Experts
If Current Trends Continue, the Number of Births will Actually Increase by Year 2005

January 21, 1999 -- While recent declines in teen pregnancy and birth rates are encouraging, a closer look at the projections reveals the need for increased vigilance in the efforts to reduce teen pregnancy, according to officials at Breaking the Cycle and the Connecticut Association for Human Services, two organizations which seek to improve the health of Connecticut’s young people. 

The number of births to teens ages 15-19 in Connecticut during 1996 was 3,578, or 37 per 1,000. With Connecticut’s increasing population, assuming the birth rate stays the same, the number of births to teens during the year 2005 would be 4,124, according to statistics released today in When Teens Have Sex: Issues and Trends, a KIDS COUNT Special Report, by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. 

"Even at 37 per 1,000, Connecticut’s rate of births to teens is still unacceptably high," said Breaking the Cycle’s Flora Parisky. "We cannot afford to assume that we can relax our efforts and watch the numbers continue to drop. We must continue to develop and support comprehensive programs targeted toward teen pregnancy prevention."

According to the report, Connecticut’s rate of teen births mirrored the national figures, rising steadily from 1980 through the early 1990s and then beginning to drop. But while the national rates by 1996 were back to 1980 levels, Connecticut’s numbers remained higher. The decline in the teen birth rate in Connecticut between 1991 and 1996 was one of the smallest in the nation.

Many factors, including education, values and beliefs, access to contraception and family environment contribute to a teen’s decision on whether to have sex and thereby increase the risk of becoming pregnant. There is no single prevention solution that works for all youth. That is why comprehensive programs, such as Hartford’s Plain Talk/Hablando Claro, which seek to address the underlying issues of poverty and which promote communication, skills-building and self esteem are so effective. 

One reason why many teens choose not to delay their childbearing years may be the lack of a vision for a personally and professionally rewarding future. Poverty has been shown to be a contributing factor. The number of Connecticut children living in poverty is on the
rise, according to a new report released recently by the Connecticut Association for Human Services. Titled Connecticut’s Children: Increasingly Poor, the 85-page publication is the fifth in an annual series Produced by the association’s KIDS 2000 project which documents the well-being of the state’s children. It highlights the dramatic inequality of circumstances that exist for our state’s children, too many of whom face insurmountable barriers to success.

CAHS Executive Director Paul Gionfriddo, in the report’s introduction, indicates that nearly 750,000 Connecticut children – one in five – live in poverty and 150,000 come from single-parent families. Poor children, writes Gionfriddo, are more likely than rich or middle-class children to experience deprivation and poor health, die young, score lower on standardized education tests, drop out of school, become teen parents, experience violent crime, or end up as poor adults. 

This increasing poverty comes at a time when the economy is improving and Connecticut remains the richest state in the nation. The CAHS report suggests that one of the best cures to child poverty simply may be skills training and enough jobs that provide adequate wages to support families.

Parisky and Gionfriddo both note that conditions for Connecticut’s children didn’t worsen overnight, and we cannot expect a sudden reversal in teen birth rates or poverty. "The situation has been declining for ten, fifteen, twenty years and more," says Gionfriddo. "There will be no ‘silver bullet’ that reverses this trend all at once. The answer begins with the state as a whole."

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