Parenting at any age can be challenging, but it can be particularly difficult for adolescent parents. Childbearing during adolescence negatively affects the parents, their children, and society.

Most teenage girls don’t plan to get pregnant, but many do. Teen pregnancies carry extra health risks to both the mother and the baby.

Often, teens don’t get prenatal care soon enough, which can lead to problems later on. They have a higher risk for pregnancy-related high blood pressure and its complications. Risks for the baby include premature birth and a low birth weight.

If you’re a pregnant teen, you can help yourself and your baby by:

• Getting regular prenatal care.
• Taking your prenatal vitamins for your health and to prevent some birth defects.
• Avoiding smoking, alcohol, and drugs.
• Using a condom, if you are having sex, to prevent sexually transmitted diseases that could hurt your baby.

1. 3 in 10 teen American girls will get pregnant at least once before age 20. That’s nearly 750,000 teen pregnancies every year.
2. Parenthood is the leading reason that teen girls drop out of school. More than half of teen mothers never graduate from high school.
3. Less than 2 percent of teen moms earn a college degree by age 30.
4. About a quarter of teen moms have a second child within 24 months of their first baby.
5. The United States has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the western industrialized world.
6. From 1990 to 2008, the teen pregnancy rate decreased 42 percent (from 117 to 68 pregnancies per 1,000 teen girls).
7. In 2008 the teen pregnancy rate among African-American and Hispanic teen girls, age 15 to 19, was over two and a half times higher than the teen pregnancy rate among white teen girls of the same age group.
8. 8 out of 10 teen dads don’t marry the mother of their child.
9. A sexually active teen who doesn’t use contraceptives has a 90 percent chance of becoming pregnant within a year.
10. Almost 50 percent of teens have never considered how a pregnancy would affect their lives.
11. Teens had fewer babies in 2010 than in any year since the mid-1940s.