
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 26, 1994                   TAG: 9411180021
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

BIRTH RATE AMONG TEENS SHOWS DROP

The rate at which American's teen-agers are having babies has dropped for the first time since 1986.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday the sudden 2 percent drop in the 1992 teen birth rate was a turning point. From 1986 through 1991, that rate had skyrocketed 27 percent.

``We feel it's a real change,'' said Stephanie Ventura, a statistician with CDC's National Center for Health Statistics who wrote the report. ``It reverses a pattern where it had been going up 5, 6, 7 percent a year from 1986 on.''

But that good news was shadowed by the 1992 birth report card's finding that many babies - 7.1 percent - are still born too small.

``The nation's objective for the year 2000 is to reduce the percentage of babies born at low birth weight to no more than 5 percent,'' said March of Dimes President Dr. Jennifer Howse. ``Right now, it doesn't appear to me that we have any chance of making it.''

The center calculated the nation's birth trends by analyzing the 4.07 million birth certificates filed in 1992.

For every 1,000 women aged 15-19 in 1992, the center reported 60.7 births, down from the 62.1 births reported the previous year. But the drop actually occurred only among teens 15, 16 and 17, whose rate declined to 37.8 births per 1,000 from 38.7 in 1991. Among 18- and 19-year-olds, the rate was statistically unchanged, 94.5 in 1992 vs. 94.4 in 1991.

Ventura cited other studies that show a trend toward sexual abstinence and improved use of condoms as possible reasons for the sudden change.

The government cannot calculate an overall teen pregnancy rate, which includes live births and abortions, because 10 states keep no figures on abortions. But Ventura said other studies have shown teen abortions to be steadily declining as well, ruling out abortion as a factor in the falling teen birth rate.

Among mothers of all ages, the incidence of low-weight births remained unchanged at 7.1 percent. Babies born weighing less than 5 pounds, 8 ounces are at increased risk of death during early infancy and of developmental problems.

by CNB