• Women who start sex before 16 are more than 3 times more likely to become pregnant before they are 20 1
• A significant number of young women conceive more than once in their teens; one in six teenagers who had an abortion in 1997 had already had an abortion or a live birth, and 2 per cent had had both
• Teenage girls who do not use contraception have a 90% chance of conceiving within 1 year 1 (37% of girls aged 16 - 19 do not routinely use condoms 2)

Girls with a history of disadvantage are more likely to become pregnant in their teens. Risk factors include:1

• Poverty
• Being or having been in care
• Being the child of a teenage mother
• Low educational achievement
• Not being in education, training or work after the age of 16
• Having been sexually abused in childhood
• Having mental health problems
• Having been involved in crime

The increasing risk with multiple risk factors has been quantified:3