Teenage Pregnancy

Tina Jacobson has a close relationship with her teenage daughter. Shireen Miles and her daughter are close too. Jacobson believes her teen, Karissa, would come to her for help if she became pregnant. Same goes for Miles. But that's where the common ground ends for these two California mothers, who stand on opposing sides of what may be the most emotional -- and littlenoticed -- measure on the state's Nov. 8 special election ballot.

Citing Santa Ana's high teenage pregnancy rate, some parents and others in Orange County's largest school district are questioning a proposed health curriculum that pushes abstinence and barely mentions birth control. The Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Trustees will meet tonight to consider adopting a health textbook that doesn't include information on contraception.

Los Angeles County has made significant progress in reducing teen births and child poverty levels and in boosting childhood immunizations, but troubling geographic and ethnic inequalities in children's welfare persist, a new study has found.

Pregnant students and teen mothers are being unlawfully moved from regular classes at Antelope Valley public high schools to alternative classrooms that are "little more than a study hall," according to a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

For 17-year-old David Mendez the price of admission to a computer training course included lessons in a male's responsibility in preventing teenage pregnancy. "It makes you think about how all your plans would change if you weren't careful," Mendez said of Project Amiga's Male Responsibility for Pregnancy Prevention Program. "You have to decide if being a parent so young is the life you want, or whether you want to be better prepared in life first."

The farm belt of the San Joaquin Valley has the highest teen birthrate of any region in California -- more than twice as high as those in the urban and more affluent Bay Area, a statewide study released Thursday has found.

A study shows that the state's teen birthrate is dropping, but Nevada officials said further education is needed to keep even more adolescent girls from getting pregnant. Since 1999, the state's birthrate among teenagers has dropped from 61 per 1,000 girls ages 15 to 19 to 56 per 1,000 girls last year, according to the study released this week by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. During the middle and late 1990s Nevada had the most teenage pregnancies in the nation per capita.

California's teen birth rate has dipped below the national average for the first time since 1980, the state Department of Health Services said Monday. About 45 out of every 1,000 teen females, ages 15 to 19, gave birth in 2001, the lowest number since 1991, when 73 births per thousand were reported. California ranks 32nd in the nation, where it has remained for the last few years as national averages have also declined at a similar rate.

As teenage birthrates in California and the nation fall to the lowest level in decades, 16-year-old Ana Maria finds herself on the wrong side of the statistics. The San Gabriel Valley girl is three months pregnant, despite what she calls a strict upbringing and warnings by her mother to be careful. In late October, when her baby is born, she will join a populous sisterhood of young Latinas, who have the highest teenage birthrate of all major racial and ethnic groups in the nation.

One teenage pregnancy does not present a health risk, Scottish researchers have found, but subsequent pregnancies during the teen years do. The study contradicts previous findings that initial teen pregnancies are a hazard, and is the first to find that subsequent pregnancies produce a greater risk. Dr. Gordon C.S. Smith of the University of Glasgow and his colleagues identified 110,233 nonsmoking Scottish women, ages 15 to 29, who gave birth for the first or second time between 1992 and 1998.