World AIDS Day March in Redding A Success! - 12/12/07

To commemorate World AIDS Day, Planned Parenthood: Shasta-Diablo health centers offered free or low-cost HIV screenings. In Redding (Shasta county), a march was held to raise awareness about HIV prevention, celebrate the strength of those living with HIV/AIDS, and to remember those we've lost. 35 people participated in the march which ended at the Planned Parenthood health center in Redding where HIV screenings were made available. Here are some of the pictures from that great event:

Teen Births Are On The Rise, But California Remains Low - 12/6/07

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that teen births in the United States are on the rise, but California still remains the lowest in the nation. Planned Parenthood: Shasta-Diablo (PPSD) has the largest community service and education department in the country, focusing on the prevention of teen pregnancy, transmission of sexually transmitted infections and HIV, and the need for abortion. Visit PPSD's Web site for more information about our education programs.

Report: U.S. teen births rise

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer1 hour, 33 minutes ago

The nation's teen birth rate has risen for the first time in 14 years, according to a new government report.

The birth rate had been dropping since 1991. The decline had slowed in recent years, but government statisticians said Wednesday it jumped 3 percent from 2005 to 2006.

"It took us by surprise," said Stephanie Ventura of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a co-author of the report.

The birth data for 2006 also showed births to unmarried mothers hit a new record high, and the overall birth rate has climbed to its highest level since 1971.

The teen increase was based on the 15-19 age group, which accounted for about 99 percent of the more than 440,000 births to teens in 2006.

The rate rose to 41.9 live births per 1,000 females in that age group, up from 40.5 in 2005
Benefits are big when kids stop having kids

By Daniel Weintraub - dweintraub@sacbee.com

Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, November 25, 2007
Story appeared in FORUM section, Page E4

Births to teenage mothers – one of the leading causes of social dysfunction – have dropped dramatically since 1991, and the rate in California is now the lowest ever recorded for the state, according to a new study. This trend, which has received relatively little notice, appears to be both a product of a cultural shift and the harbinger of more to come. It is great news.

The children of teen mothers are widely believed to be less healthy, more prone to abuse, poorer, less educated, more often placed in foster homes and more likely to become criminals. One state study put the price to taxpayers for just some of these problems at more than $1 billion a year.

But all of that might soon be changing. Teen birth rates have fallen dramatically in the past 15 years, according to a new report by Hans Johnson of the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan research organization. From a peak of about 74 births per 1,000 teens aged 15 to 19 in 1991, the rate by 2005 had dropped to 38 per 1,000 teens. And the rate is dropping for all ethnic groups.

The rate for whites has declined from 43 per 1,000 teens to 15. For blacks, it has plunged from 105 to about 40. For Asians, it has dropped from 30 to 12. And among Latinas, the teen birth rate has declined from 119 per 1,000 teens in 1991 to about 67 today.

While as a group Latinas still have the highest teen birth rates, by far, their experience is a big part of this story. A surge in the number of young Latina immigrants after changes in U.S. immigration laws in the 1980s contributed to a big increase in teen births here. As men who were here illegally gained legal status, many brought their families to join them from their native countries.

The girls who were part of that immigration wave came from a culture where young mothers and large families were the norm, and they helped drive up fertility rates and teen birth rates in California. The teen birth rate had reached a low of 48 per 1,000 teens in 1984. But by 1991 – five years after the last big amnesty for illegal immigrants – the teen birth rate in California was at a new high.

"There was a catch-up effect," Johnson says. "It was a mini-baby boom."

But most of the Latino women coming of age today were either born in the United States or grew up here. As they assimilate, they are picking up the norms of the dominant culture, having fewer children and having them later in life.

The immigrant experience, however, does not explain why rates for blacks and whites are also plummeting.

One explanation for that phenomenon is the increasing acceptance of sex education, birth control and abortion. Birth control experts have lauded California for having the best sex education and birth control programs in the nation. Those programs have likely helped persuade many girls to postpone motherhood.

Another is welfare reform. Changes in federal and state laws in the mid-1990s put time limits on public assistance for poor women with children and required that able-bodied recipients to go to school or work. Teen birth rates were already dropping by the time those laws kicked in, but making it less attractive for poor young women to have children has probably contributed to the decline.

The overriding factor may simply be the cultural changes that have come with the economic emancipation of women. A generation ago, it was still common for teenage girls to marry young and have children, putting off a career for many years and perhaps forever. Today, though, a majority of college students are women, women are in the work force in record numbers and economic opportunity for women has improved tremendously. Every teenage girl sees this. For more and more of them, it has become the norm.

"When you look at where teen birth rates are high and where they are low, you see they tend to be lowest in places that have the best economic outlook," Johnson said. "When kids look to their future, they look around, and if they are in a place where economic opportunity is available, and where economic opportunities have increased for women, that plays a role."

The implications are enormous. When kids stop having kids, everyone benefits. The children eventually born to those mothers when they are more mature and economically secure are generally better off and better cared for. And when they grow up, they are less likely to be a burden on society and a source of growing costs for taxpayers. They are probably less likely to have kids while teens themselves, which further nips the destructive cycle in the bud.

At a time when we are bombarded by bad news on every front, the downward trend in teen births seems indisputably positive. It's something that needs to be celebrated and reinforced so that it continues.

About the writer:

• Call The Bee's Daniel Weintraub, (916) 321-1914. Readers can see his blog about health care at www.sacbee.com/healthcare.