Yorkshire Post

Fall in rate of teenage pregnancie­s

-

TEENAGE PREGNANCY rates in England and Wales have fallen to their lowest on record.

There were 20,351 conception­s to girls under 18 in 2015, some 10 per cent fewer than in 2014, according to the Office for National Statistics.

There were 21 pregnancie­s out of every 1,000 teenage girls in 2015, down from 47.1 in 1969 when comparable records began.

But the national average was far exceeded in Hull (38.4) and North East Lincolnshi­re (37.6), which had the third and fourth highest conception rates respective­ly for girls aged 15 to 17.

Izzi Seccombe, chairwoman of the Local Government Associatio­n’s community and wellbeing board, praised the Government’s decision to make sex and relationsh­ips education compulsory in schools but warned that such good work could be put at risk by the “false economy” of cuts to councils’ public health funding, which will make the drop in teenage conception rates even harder to sustain.

And Ms Seccombe added that the prize for keeping the rate down was huge. She said: “Getting it right on teenage pregnancy will not only make a difference to individual lives, it will help narrow inequaliti­es and reduce longterm demand on health and social care services.”

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom