The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is a participant in the national debate about the cluster of issues involved in the present high birth rate of unmarried teenagers: education for pregnancy avoidance, contraception, abortion, extended social services for teenage parents and their children.

The Academy notes that scientific data has established that:

• The young adolescent most vulnerable to pregnancy has been subject to adverse sociocultural conditions of poverty, discrimination, and family disorganization.
• The pregnancies of these adolescents are likely to entail poor pre-natal care with consequent medical complications that threaten the well-being of both mother and fetus.
• The children of such pregnancies are often not given up for adoption and eventually become part of the foster care and welfare systems and enter a lifetime of dependency and expensive social interventions.
• These children are often unwanted and are more prone to abuse, neglect, failure to thrive, and serious medical illness.
• The tendency of this pattern to pass from generation is marked, and perpetuates a cycle of social and educational failure, mental and physical illness, and serious delinquency.

As a result of these data, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recommends that there be adequately funded programs of education for pregnancy avoidance, elective abortion, and available contraception, and that psychiatric services be used where appropriate to aid in the interruption of this cycle.

See also the American Academy of Pediatrics Policy Statement, Adolescent Pregnancy - Current Trends and Issues: 1998 (RE9828).