Texas leads U.S. in repeat teen births

Like a lot of teenagers, Iryanna Rodriguez’s day starts early and ends late, and she’s often running behind from the moment she wakes up. The 18-year-old juggles all the normal high school experiences — classes, a boyfriend, a search for a part-time job — along with some additional hurdles.

“I’m always in a rush in the morning, getting my son ready and out for school,” she said. “And then the baby, I have to get her changed. It doesn’t get more real than that, first thing in the morning.”

Rodriguez got pregnant for the first time when she was just 13 years old. Her son is now 4. Last year, she had a daughter, as well. She says her children are her greatest blessing and have taught her that she’s capable of so much more than she realized.

“But, yes, two children is a lot harder than one,” she said with a laugh.

While teenage birth rates have declined significantly across the country in recent decades, Texas remains above the national average, consistently ranking in the top 10 states. Out of all births in Texas, around 6 percent were teen births in 2019 and 2020.

Repeat teen births

And a startling proportion of teenagers who gave birth in Texas in 2020 — more than 1 in 6 — already had at least one other child. Analysis by the Texas Tribune using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Texas had the highest rate of these socalled “repeat teen births” in the country, along with Alabama. In the last decade, the state has been in the top five states for repeat teen birth rates.

Rodriguez lives in Brownsville, a city in the poor, predominantly Hispanic Rio Grande Valley on the U.S.-Mexico border. While Texas has seen an overall decline in the repeat teen birth rate, the counties that make up this region have not, with more than 1 in 5 teens that give birth already having at least one child almost every year since 2005. This is according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Cynthia Cardenas sees the impact of this every day. She’s the principal at Brownsville’s Lincoln Park High School, where all the students, including Rodriguez, are pregnant or parenting.

Other schools in the Brownsville Independent School District have softball teams or drama productions. Lincoln Park has a day care and flexible scheduling.

Sex education

Texas does not require high schools to teach sex education, and the vast majority that do focus on sexual abstinence. The state has a complicated maze of requirements for teenagers seeking birth control and is currently operating under the strictest abortion laws in the country.

All of this leaves teenagers with insufficient tools to proactively manage their own reproductive health, advocates and teenagers say, with longlasting consequences for themselves, their children and their communities.

In 2020, the Texas State Board of Education overhauled its sex education standards for the first time in two decades. While schools still must stress abstinence, starting this year, seventh- and eighth-graders will also have to learn about other birth control methods.

The board declined to require districts to teach about sexual orientation, gender identity and consent. And after a change by the Legislature, all sex education in Texas is now “optin,” meaning parents must proactively enroll their students in these classes.

Declining rates

Teenage birth rates have declined precipitously in the United States in recent decades to an all-time low in 2019 of 16.7 births per 1,000 girls ages 15-19. But in

Texas, there were 24 births per 1,000 girls in the same cohort, according to the CDC.

“Despite all of this tremendous progress, the pace of the decline has been inconsistent,” said Jennifer Biundo, director of policy and data at the Texas Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. “What’s really coming to light is increasing disparities and the young women who are left behind.”

In Texas, Biundo said, it’s Hispanic and Black teenagers who continue to have high rates of teenage pregnancy, as well as teenagers in the foster care system, teens in rural areas and teens with a history of trauma.

Biundo and other advocates say decades of declining teen pregnancy rates have shown what works, specifically a system that has “no wrong doors” for teens who are looking to access contraception, education and other tools to manage their own reproductive decisions.