In May and throughout the year, the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) Family Planning Program reaches out to teens for their future.
Teaching teens about healthy life skills, development, and communication helps to prepare them for adulthood and equips them with the information needed to make responsible decisions and avoid teen pregnancy.
The good news is the number of teen pregnancies continues to be on the decline in New Mexico, following national trends in decreasing teen births, and NMDOH is working today to continue that trend into tomorrow.
From 2000 to 2014, New Mexico’s teen birth rate for 15-19 year olds decreased 48 percent, to 34.3 per 1,000 residents.
While the reduction in teen births in New Mexico is encouraging, it’s not cause for celebration. We have a lot more work to do.
Research makes it clear: teen births in New Mexico and nationwide are a primary driver of generational poverty. Reducing teen births will improve high school graduation rates and lead to a better trained workforce, which will improve the state’s economy, and our overall health status.
The Department of Health continues to work to lower those rates on multiple fronts. Prevention programs 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.
· Teen Outreach Program (TOP), which reaches teens in grades 6 through 12, has been proven successful in preventing teen pregnancy and increasing academic success by building life skills such as healthy relationships, communication, values, examining influences, goal setting, decision making, sexual health, community service learning, and others.
· Project AIM (Adult Identity Mentoring) is an evidence based curriculum designed to reduce sexual risk behaviors by developing the motivation to make safe choices. Throughout Project AIM, youth explore future careers and envision positive futures. Youth engage in activities such as creating resumes, planning a dream vacation, interviewing skills, and developing their own business cards. In NM, Project AIM is provided for 11-14 year old youth.
· From the Playground to the Prom is an education workshop which 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. The focus of ¡Cuídate! is 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 STDs, as well as teen pregnancy.
NMDOH also encourages the use of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) 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 in Las Cruces and statewide. It is also available at some community and school-based health centers. To find a clinic, visit http://nmhealth.org/go/familyplanning/
DOH also provides access to confidential family planning services at low- or no-cost in 71 sites at Public Health Offices, Primary Care Clinics, and School-Based Health Centers across the state.
More information on teen birth rates in New Mexico, visit https://ibis.health.state.nm.us/indicator/complete_profile/BirthTeen.html