1996 Teen Pregnancy Rate in County Drops Steeply

Teen pregnancy in Ventura County last year saw its steepest decline in a decade, a downturn attributed to a stronger focus on the role of fathers, increased use of condoms in the age of AIDS and a variety of prevention programs underway across the county.

New state figures released by the state Health and Welfare Agency show there were 1,159 births to teen mothers between 15 and 19 years of age in Ventura County in 1996. That compares with 1,247 the previous year.

Most significant, county officials say, is a nearly 12% decrease in the birthrate among girls ages 15 and 17.

Between 1986 and 1993, the birthrate for girls 17 and younger in the county rose steadily by 33%.

But while births to teen mothers still represent about 10% of all births in Ventura County each year, the teen pregnancy tide appears to be turning.

And officials expect the trend to continue.

“It is a very slow process,” said Diane Viscencio, the county’s maternal and child health director. “Part of it is just an awareness that there’s more to life than just having a baby.”

Last year California had a 9% drop in the rate of births to teen mothers, the largest single-year decrease recorded in the state in 25 years. The 9.7% decline in the Ventura County birthrate is the largest since 1987, county figures show.

Still, despite the decrease, county officials have watched a slight increase in births to girls younger than 15, Viscencio said, from 19 births in 1995 to 26 births in 1996.

“One of our problems is access to that age group,” she said. “Where do you get that message out?”

Officials say the reasons for the decline in births to teen mothers are as varied as the reasons so many young girls get pregnant.

Viscencio suspects part of the decrease can be attributed to an increased use of condoms to avoid contracting HIV, the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

She also believes increased efforts to promote abstinence among teens is having an effect and that welfare-reform efforts will soon show young girls that the days of the stay-at-home welfare mother are numbered.

Furthermore, officials say, until a few years ago the teen pregnancy problem was largely seen as a female concern. For years, boys often were left out of educational programs that sought to teach teenagers about the responsibilities of parenting.

But that is changing.

There is now a wide-ranging effort underway across the county to hold men and boys responsible for the children they father, officials say.

The issue of teen pregnancy has been in the news in recent days after the slaying of a 15-year-old girl who was seven months’ pregnant. The girl had been shot in her head and abdomen, and police have arrested her 22-year-old boyfriend in connection with the death.

In Ventura County, more than two-thirds of the children born to teenage mothers are fathered not by naive teenage boyfriends, but by adult men who ought to know better, officials say.

“It’s very [common], and so we will continue to battle it,” said Nikki Steele, coordinator of a program for pregnant adolescents at the Ventura County Public Health Department.

Last year the county was among 16 across the state participating in a one-year trial program to step up prosecution of adults who have sex with minors, whether the girls become pregnant or not.

Meanwhile, the Male Responsibility Program, sponsored by El Concilio del Condado Ventura, has put dozens of young men through intense discussions about self-esteem, fatherhood and teen pregnancy over the past two years.

But recent successes in reducing the birthrate are no reason to become complacent, officials say.

In the spring, six county government and nonprofit agencies, armed with $630,000 in state grants, began stepping up the effort to reduce teen pregnancy rates even further over the next two years.

El Concilio, Interface, county Public Health Department, Planned Parenthood, Future Leaders of America and Clinicas del Camino Real have banded together to fight teen pregnancy, developing individual programs that touch different aspects of the problem.

One program seeks to link Latinas with positive role models. Another teaches parents about how to talk to their teens about sex. Still another is teaching young boys how to relate to the babies they already have created, in part to help them become good fathers and in part to make sure they don’t make the same mistake twice.

“People and organizations are working in collaboration now as opposed to individually, and I think it’s really proving to work that way,” said El Concilio’s Ramona Benitez, the project director of the Avance Consortium Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program and the author of the successful grant application. “It’s better to have a team than an individual.”

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