Telford sees record low rate of teen pregnancies

A combination of young women increasingly turning their aspirations towards education, stigma associated with being a teenage mother, better sex education and improved access to contraceptives have all helped drive a downturn in the national rate at which under 18s conceive children.

Telford enjoyed a particularly pronounced decline, and in 2015 there were only 25 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 18 and under in the borough.

When records began in 1998, the rate stood at 64.2 per 1,000 women.

Shropshire has a lower rate still, with 17 pregnancies per 1,000 women, but that actually reflects a slight increase on the previous year.

Professor Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England, said: "It is good news that the rate of teenage pregnancy continues to decline, as it is linked to poor future health for both parents and babies.

"We want to maintain this downward trend and support young people to make informed choices so that they can secure the best possible future for them and their children."

In total, 93 under-18s in Shropshire and 79 in Telford and Wrekin got pregnant in 2015, with 63.4 per cent of those in Shropshire and 29.2 per cent of those in Telford getting an abortion.

The county is often characterised as having an ageing population, so while it will be welcome that the total number of women getting pregnant in Shropshire has increased over the year, the rate at which people conceive is still well below the wider region.

In 2015 – the last year covered by the figures – 3,512 women in Shropshire got pregnant, or 71.5 per 1,000 women in the county.

There were 2,570 pregnancies in Telford & Wrekin, which equates to 79.4 women for every 1,000 living in the county.

Both were behind the 82.8 women in every 1,000 who got pregnant in the West Midlands, where a total of 90,504 women got pregnant in 2015.

In 2015, the estimated number of conceptions in England and Wales rose by 0.7 per cent to 876,934, from 871,038 the year before.

The figures also show that most babies are conceived out of wedlock.

The ONS said there has been a long-term rise in the percentage of pregnancies occurring outside marriage or civil partnership, reaching 57 per cent in 2015 in England and Wales.