What You Need To Know About Teen Pregnancy

Unexpected follows teenage couples and their families navigating teenage pregnancy and parenthood. Along with our partners at Power to Decide, the campaign to prevent unplanned pregnancy, we created discussion guides, tips, and resources to help open the lines of communication for young people and their parents, mentors and allies to spark meaningful conversations about unplanned pregnancy, and to help ensure that all young people have the power to decide if, when and under what circumstances to get pregnant.

Be sure to check out all the resources available at TLCme.com/FamilyResources, and visit our Facts Gallery and Myths Gallery for even more information.

Did you know?

• The U.S. has seen a 67 percent decline in the teen birth rate since 1991, including profound declines in all 50 states and among all racial/ethnic groups.

However...

• Progress is not victory: Roughly 1 in 4 girls in the U.S. gets pregnant by age 20, and the vast majority of teen pregnancies are described by teens themselves as unplanned.

• Young people who have sex without protection on a regular basis have an 85% chance of pregnancy within a year.

• Daughters of teen mothers are more than 3 times as likely to become teen moms themselves.

• 30 percent of teen girls who drop out of school cite pregnancy or parenthood as a reason, and less than two percent of young teen mothers get a college degree by age 30.

It's important to know:

• Ensuring that all teens have quality information and access to birth control is one of the best strategies to boost the graduation rate.

• 9 in 10 young people say it would be much easier to avoid sex and postpone pregnancy if they were able to have more open, honest conversations with their parents about these topics.

• More than 6 in 10 young people have learned something useful about sex, love or relationships from popular media such as TV shows or movies.

• Nearly 7 in 10 teens say the primary reason that teens don't use birth control is that they're afraid their parents will find out.

• 9 in 10 adults think that young people should have a trusted adult or network to provide them with information and guidance on topics like sex, love, relationships, or birth control. 7 in 10 adults consider themselves to be a trusted source of information for young people on these topics.