Local teen pregnancy statistics include 7th-graders
Over the past two years, dozens of girls have gone through the Warren County School System while pregnant, including some girls who got pregnant as early as the seventh grade.
While the nation-wide adolescent and teen birth rate has actually decreased by almost half since 1992, according to the Foundation for Child Development, which reported a nationwide rate of 10.9 births per 1,000 in 2004, the teen pregnancy and teen birth rates in Warren County are much higher.
According to the latest available Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth – Kids Count report, the teen pregnancy rate in 2003 was 34.6 per 1,000, and that report only counts those ages 15 to 17. Warren County’s teen birth rate, which is often more reliable for statistical analysis, was 30.9 for 2003, as compared to the state average of 27.8.
Kids Count director Pam Brown said Warren County has made progress in these areas over the past couple of years, but still has work to do.
“It really looks like Warren County has made some improvements on these two indicators,” she said of teen pregnancy and teen birth rates spanning from 1999 to 2003. “Although the data appears consistently worse than the state averages.”
Additional information provided by Warren County School System records show there were 16 students from grades seven to 12 who were served through a pregnancy-related homebound program for the 2003-2004 school year, according to the special education department, which is responsible for the paperwork associated with homebound applications.
Being allowed homebound privileges gives students the opportunity to stay on the education trail while they recover from giving birth, typically for six weeks. Students can also go homebound if deemed medically unable to attend school due to pregnancy complications.
So far this year, 13 students from grades eight through 12 have been served through homebound services.
Special education supervisor Linda Wilson said not all students who are pregnant use homebound services, so the reported numbers are not necessarily representative of all student pregnancies in the school system or in Warren County.
Some students might give birth during the summer months and be able to attend school while pregnant, while others might seek home-schooling, and others might attend the adult education program, she said.
Additionally, the lower numbers of the past two years are reflective of a change in homebound services eligibility. Prior to the 2003-2004 school year, Wilson said, pregnant students were allowed to go homebound for things like morning sickness. Now, a student has to be medically unable to attend school to be granted homebound services, she added.
Given the change, the numbers prior to 2003-2004 are almost double the numbers reported for the last two school years. For 2002-2003, 25 students went homebound for pregnancy, along with 28 in 2001-2002 and 28 in 2000-2001.
As to how Warren County ranked in 2003 compared to neighboring counties, Kids Count figures for 2003 show the following birth rate information: Van Buren, 20.8; White, 27.7; DeKalb, 36 and Grundy, 37.4, compared with the state average of 27.8.