Q&A (Focus - in the U.S.)

Percentage of teen pregnancies:

Over forty percent of adolescents will become pregnant before reaching age twenty(41 percent of whites and 63 percent of nonwhites). By age 18, one in four young women(24 percent) will have a pregnancy.
Of the total number of teen pregnancies, approximately half occur with eighteen & nineteen years old.
The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate of any developed country. It is twice as high as England, France & Canada, three times as high as Sweden and four times as high as The Netherlands
(http://www.teenshelter.org/data.htm)

Average age of first childbirth:

The average age of childbirth in the U.S. is 24.9 years old.
(http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_age_of_wom_at_fir_chi-health-age-women-first-childbirth)

Percentage of abortions:

INCIDENCE OF ABORTION
• Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion. Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.
• Forty percent of pregnancies among white women, 69% among blacks and 54% among Hispanics are unintended.
• In 2005, 1.21 million abortions were performed, down from 1.31 million in 2000. From 1973 through 2005, more than 45 million legal abortions occurred.
• Each year, about two percent of women aged 15-44 have an abortion; 47% of them have had at least one previous abortion.
(http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html)

Percentage of male circumcision:

Whites, about 80% , and blacks about 45%. In some hospitals, more than 90 percent of boys were circumcised.
(http://www.cirp.org/library/statistics/USA/)

Percentage of maternal deaths:

The historical level of maternal deaths is probably around 1 in 100 births. Mortality rates reached horrible proportions in maternity institutions in the 1800s, sometimes climbing to 40 percent of birth giving women. At the beginning of the 1900s, maternal death rates were around 1 in 100 for live births. The number today in the U.S. is 11 in 100,000, a decline by orders of magnitude.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_mortality#Maternal_death_rates_in_the_20th_century)

Percentage of pregnant women with STDs:

About 25 to 30 percent of pregnant women have the herpes virus. In the U.S., as many as 16 percent of pregnant woman have Bacterial Vaginosis (BV). An estimated 2.8 million Americans are infected with Chlamydia each year -- including 200,000 pregnant women. Estimated to affect 80,000 pregnant women each year, trichomoniasis is the most common STD among women.
(http://www.parents.com/pregnancy/my-body/complications/pregnancy-and-stds/?page=1)

Percentage of premature births:

Some 12.3 percent of all babies – 499,008 infants -- were born prematurely (less than 37 weeks gestation) in 2003, according to the report released by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). That's up from 12.1 percent (or about 480,000 babies) in 2002 – and an increase of more than 30 percent since the government began tracking premature births in 1981. The prematurity rate was 9.4 in 1981; it has increased every year since then except for slight dips in 1992 and 2000.
(http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/002997.html)

Percentage of c-section births:

Nearly three in 10 babies born in the United States are now delivered by C-section.
(http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5311258)

According to the Public Citizen Health Research Group, certified nurse-midwives have a cesarean section rate of 11.6 percent compared with a national average of 23.3 percent.
(http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=51188)

Percentage of adoption:

In the 1990s, there are approximately 120,000 adoptions of children each year. This number has remained fairly constant in the 1990s, and is still relatively proportionate to population size in the U.S.
104,000 children were adopted in 1986, 53,000 of whom were related adoptions and 51,000 of whom were unrelated. In addition, approximately 10,000 children were adopted from abroad, bringing the total number of unrelated adoptions to 61,000. (Bachrach, London, Maza, 1991)
The estimated total number of adoptions has ranged from a low of 50,000 in 1944 to a high of 175,000 in 1970. The number of adoptions by unrelated petitioners declined from a high of 89,200 in 1970 to 47,700 in 1975, while the number of adoptions by related petitioners remained constant between 81,000 and 89,000 during this period.
(http://statistics.adoption.com/information/adoption-statistics-numbers-trends.html)

Most fertile race in the U.S.:

Could not find answer.

Percentage of stillbirths:

Stillbirth is a relatively common, but often random, occurrence. The mean stillbirth rate in the U.S. is approximately 1 in 115 births, which is roughly 26,000 stillbirths each year, or on an average one every 20 minutes.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stillbirth#Prevalence)

Percentage of natural births:

Midwives attend 6 percent of all births in the United States.
Of midwife-attended births, 95 percent occur in hospitals, 3 percent occur in birth centers, and 1 percent occur in private homes.
According to the World Health Organization, 90 to 95 percent of the entire world's births are normal.
(http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=51188)

Average time that baby stays in hospital:

Depends on mother and wellness of the baby. Usually, vaginal births stay for 2 days and c-sections stay for 3 days. Premature babies stay much longer. If it was a great birth and there were no problems, the family went home a few hours to 24 hours after birth.
(http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090130203907AACwM33)

Most of the questions i answered were based on the wellness of the child and mother. I was somewhat surprised to find the statistics to the answers. The numbers are pretty high for the negative questions such as teen pregnancies, abortions and premature babies. As for teen pregnancies, i deem it a negative factor because i do not think teenagers should be having children. Not even if they say they are totally ready. In my opinion, i think women should at least finish school and find and a stable job before having children. A teenager cannot achieve both those things at such a young age. I saw an episode of the Tyra Banks Show once and it was on the topic of of teenagers starting families. I am all for the idea of teenagers falling in love and getting married and what not but i don't think they should be having children. They have their whole lives ahead of them and i don't think they should jump the gun in life. Tyra interviewed a young couple of late teens with 2 children and they said they hated having started a family so soon. They were under extreme pressure and stress on how to support the premature family that they have created.