Comprehensive health services in the UK and Wales mean teen births are lowest since 1946

The average age of mothers giving birth in 2014 was 30.2 — the highest since records began.
In 2014, 26,000 women aged under 20 gave birth in England and Wales, down from a high of 45,500 in 2006.
It was the lowest level of births recorded among that age group since 1946. “In most developed countries women have been increasingly delaying childbearing to later in life, which has resulted in increases in the mean age at first birth and rising fertility rates among older women,” the report by the statistics office said.

“Women aged 30 to 34 currently have the highest fertility of any age group.”
The chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service Ann Furedi said that the decline in teenage births was also the result of better services. “This is due in part to the huge improvements we’ve seen in contraception advice and services for younger women, with straightforward access to abortion services when their chosen method lets them down,” Furedi said.
In addition, 27 percent of births were to mothers who themselves were born outside the United Kingdom — up from 26.5 percent in 2013


http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/comprehensive-health-services-in-the-uk-and-wales-mean-teen-births-are-lowest-since-1946/

Public health cuts could cost NHS extra and cause more unplanned pregnancies

Experts say £200m spending reduction could saddle NHS with extra £250m on abortion and maternity services after government ignored calls to reconsider



The number of unplanned pregnancies is likely to rise and cost the NHS an extra £250m on abortions and maternity services because of proposed cuts to public health spending, leading sexual health experts have warned.

The Advisory Group on Contraception said on Friday that the government’s £200m in planned savings were a false economy as cutbacks in sexual health advice and provision would have a direct impact on unwanted pregnancies.

Leading doctors’ groups had urged the chancellor, George Osborne, to pull back from his planned 6% cuts to local authority public health grants from the summer budget, but the Treasury is pushing ahead.

The AGC – which includes doctors as well as representatives of the Family Planning Association, Marie Stopes International, the Sexual Health Forum and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service – warned that contraception services would inevitably be hit given that they amounted to 10% of council spending on public health.

It forecast that if budgets were sliced to affect all services equally, it would cost the NHS at least £250m extra this year alone, as well as having a significant impact on the lives of many women. The AGC’s meetings are funded by Bayer, a manufacturer of contraceptives, but its members are unpaid and independent.

The group’s position was backed by Labour’s Luciana Berger, the shadow minister for public health, who said there was a “real risk that this decision could cost more money than it saves”.

“These figures from the Advisory Group on Contraception show that restrictions to sexual health services alone could cost the NHS £250m this year. This warning along with those from the BMA, the LGA, and other expert groups speak for themselves,” she said.

“My calls for the government to publish the details of its plans so they can be properly scrutinised have been ignored. There is no sign of the consultation on how these savings will be implemented. The longer these details are delayed, the more the promise that this decision won’t affect frontline services becomes difficult to believe.”

Ministers were tackled in a Lords debate on Thursday about where the cuts to public health spending would fall by Liberal Democrat peer Joan Walmsley, who warned they could adversely affect teenage pregnancy programmes for the young, domestic violence programmes for women, HIV prevention programmes and tuberculosis prevention programmes for the poor and homeless.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jul/10/budget-cuts-cost-nhs-rise-unplanned-pregnancies-abortion

Lets see if they rise, they probably will.