Updated: July 19, 2017

Tennessee’s teen birth rate has declined by 59 percent in less than thirty years, but may be in question after the announcement of cutting funding for teen pregnancy prevention programs across the country. This cut will directly affect three programs in Tennessee.

Tennessee currently ranks in the Top Ten states for the highest teen pregnancy rate, with 62 hundred teen births in 2015 alone. The high school graduation rate for teen mothers comes in at 40 percent. Rural communities similar to Giles County have higher rates with 1 in 19 girls getting pregnant before the age of 20.

The CDC estimates that teen pregnancy and child birth total more than nine billion dollars in health care and foster care costs in 2010, which is the most recent data available.