By Stephanie Johns
Staff Writer

Dr. Claude Burnett, District Health Director, told members of the Morgan County Board of Health that the number of pregnant teens in Morgan County has dropped.
“Good news about teen births: the trend is down,” he said.
Teen births for women ages 15 through 19 in the county have gone from a peak of 34 for African Americans in 1990 to a low of six in 2011. For Caucasian women, that number has gone from a peak of 26 in 1995 to a low of 10 in 2007. Hispanic teen women had two children in 2007 and two in 2011.
Overall, the number of teen births has gone from a high of about 55 births in 1991 to a low of 18 in 2011.
Burnett shared documents highlighting the benefits of various types of birth control, the one getting the best results being Nexplanon.
Nexplannon is a small device implanted in a woman’s arm that disperses a steady, low dose of progestin over three years.
Those who use Nexplanon experience only five pregnancies in 10,000 women, according to information Burnett provided.
The next most effective birth control, male sterilization, has 15 pregnancies in 10,000 women.
Leah Ainslie, family nurse practitioner and county nurse manager at Morgan County Health Department, said that Morgan County is on the cutting edge when it comes to Nexplanon.
“A lot of other places don’t have this,” she said, crediting Burnett.
The number of patients to the family planning program have gone up from about 500 in 2011 to about 700 patients in 2012.

Printed in the February 14, 2013 edition