FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT TEEN PREGNANCY IN MONTANA
How many Montana teens become pregnant each year?
Ø 1,643 pregnancies were reported in 2004 among teenagers, including 13 to girls under the age of 15.
Ø Montana teen pregnancy rates, fertility rates (age-specific live births rates) and abortion rates have declined over the last five-year period (2000-2004).
Ø In 2004, 28% Montana teens who had a pregnancy indicated that they had a prior pregnancy.
What does pregnancy cost Montana taxpayers?
Ø In SFY 2000, the cost to Montana taxpayers for a mother and child on FAIM, food stamps, Medicaid, and WIC averaged $14,341 for the first year.
Ø Half of Medicaid’s costliest “High Cost Babies” in FY 1994 were to teens at a cost of $1,307,366.
What are the results of teen pregnancies?
Ø In 2004, 74.5% of Montana teen pregnancies resulted in live births, approximately 25% of teen pregnancies resulted in abortions, less than 1% in fetal deaths.
How many teens are unmarried when they give birth?
Ø Non-marital births to teens represent 26% of non-marital births in Montana; the remaining 74% of non-marital births were to women 20 years or older.[1]
Ø The percentage of teen non-marital births (compared to all teen births) rose from 46% in 1981 to 80% in 2003.
What about the fathers?
Ø In 35% of the teen births in Montana, the father is three to ten years older than the mother.[2]
What percentage of Montana teenagers are sexually active?
Ø In 2005, about three out of five (60%) of 12th graders in Montana reported having had sexual intercourse at least once.
Ø Approximately one in every three (27%) 9th graders, over 4 in every ten (40%) 10th graders, and a little more than one in every two (51%) 11th graders reported they had sexual intercourse at least once.
What effect does childbearing have on a teen's health and economic status?
Ø Teens are more likely than women 20 years of age or older to have: late or no prenatal care; low birth weight babies; and babies who die within the first year of life.
Ø Teen parents are likely to be less educated, have more children, have more nonmarital births, and have more unintended births than women who postpone childbearing.
Where do we want to be?
Ø No single approach can full address or solve the complex problem of teen pregnancy.
Ø Early and comprehensive teen pregnancy prevention strategies remain exceedingly more cost effective than the choices available once pregnancy occurs.
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