Ryan's District Boards

That statistic "is very serious and represents complicated relationships with unequal power," said lead author and obstetrician Dr. Marcela Smid, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Girls who became pregnant before age 15 were twice as likely as older girls to be Hispanic or black, the researchers found. Only 25 percent of the youngest teen group reported using contraceptives the first time they had sex, compared to 56 percent of older girls. In general, U.S. teen pregnancy rates have gradually declined, but, for the youngest teens especially, "any pregnancy rate above zero is too high," she said.