Study: Teen Hospital Births Declining
Posted on: Wednesday, 30 May 2007, 15:00 CDT
The rate of young girls giving birth in U.S. hospitals dropped by a quarter between 1997 and 2004, a U.S. study said Wednesday.
During that period, the number of girls younger than 18 giving birth dropped from 55 to 41 admissions per 100,000 girls, according to research released Wednesday by the Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
But the researchers warn against too much optimism from those findings.
The United States continues to have the highest teen pregnancy and birth rates in the industrialized world. In 2004 about 3.5 percent of all hospital births -- or about 148,000 girls -- were mothers under 18.
In some parts of the country that rate was significantly higher. In the South there were 52 young mothers giving birth in hospitals for every 100,000 girls, compared with 27 per 100,000 girls in the Northeast.
Most young mothers also rely on Medicaid to pay for their births. Three in four of their hospital stays were covered by the program with a total cost of about $348 million. Private insurers paid for 21 percent, 3 percent of the girls had no health insurance, and 2 percent were paid for by various other payers.
Data for the study was taken from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, a nationwide database of non-government hospital visits.
Source: United Press International
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