Teen pregnancy decreases in New Mexico

The state of New Mexico saw a 48 percent decrease in teen birth rates from 2000 to 2014.

In recognition of May as Teen Pregnancy Awareness Month, officials with the New Mexico Department of Health encouraged parents and teens to get involved in preventing teen pregnancy.

“New Mexico continues making significant progress in reducing teen birthrates,” Department of Health Secretary Designate Lynn Gallagher said. “The Department of Health stands ready to take on the challenges that remain and ensure that young people have the support they need to determine and understand the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy.”

The latest data available shows that for the 14-year period, New Mexico’s teen birth rate for 15 to 19 year olds decreased to 34.3 per 1,000 people.

Factors influencing New Mexico’s teen birth rate include poverty rates and underserved rural populations, officials said. Some Department of Health programs in place to help reduce teen birth rates include "BrdsNBz," a text messaging service in which teens can text “NMTeen” and parents can text “NMParent” to 66746 to opt-in to the service.  From there, they can text their sexual health questions to 66746 and get medically accurate answers within 24 hours

Another offering is the Teen Outreach Program called TOP, which reaches teens in grades six through 12, and has been proven successful in preventing teen pregnancy while increasing academic success by building life skills such as healthy relationships, communication, values, examining influences, goal setting, decision making, sexual health and community service learning.

Project AIM, an Adult Identity Mentoring program, is an evidence-based curriculum designed to reduce sexual risk behaviors by developing the motivation to make safe choices. Throughout Project AIM, young people explore future careers and envision positive futures. They engage in activities such as creating resumes, planning a dream vacation, interviewing skills and developing their own business cards. In New Mexico, Project AIM is provided to students ages 11 to 14 years old.

From the Playground to the Prom is an education workshop that works with the most important educator of sexual health for teens, their parents. The skill building program helps parents learn how to have more conversations with their teens about sex and sexual health and make those conversations positive.

"¡Cuídate!" is a culturally tailored program designed specifically for Latino youth to increase each participant’s skill level and self-efficacy in communicating and negotiating with sexual partners about abstinence and condom use. ¡Cuídate! provides information for the prevention of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, as well as teen pregnancy.

Department officials also encourage the use of long-acting reversible contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies. LARC is available at low to no cost, particularly to low-income or uninsured women and teens, at the Title X Family Planning clinics in public health offices statewide. It is also available at some community and school-based health centers. Health officials provide access to confidential family planning services at low- or no-cost in 71 sites at Public Health Offices, Primary Care Clinics and many school-based health centers across the state.

More information on DOH’s teen pregnancy prevention resources are available at https://nmhealth.org/about/phd/fhb/tpp/.