Contact Name
Barbara Dietsch
562-799-5126
bdietsc@WestEd.org

Colorado
Teen Pregnancy/Pregnancy Prevention

By Robert Conklin and Donna Crowe

In 65 clinics throughout Colorado, over 53,500 women and men receive family planning services annually. Eighty-nine percent (89%) of the patients served have incomes at or below 150% of poverty. Patient fees are determined by the patient’s income level. The average cost for providing a year of services is $164.

More than 56,400 female adolescents in Colorado need subsidized family planning services. Half of those teens are currently being served in clinics throughout Colorado. An estimated 9,000 unintended teen pregnancies are prevented by state and federally funded programs each year.

Teenagers receive comprehensive services including counseling on sexual responsibility, prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS, pregnancy prevention, and abstinence. All visits are confidential, but teens are encouraged to discuss their concerns and family planning visits with their parents.

Women enrolled in Prenatal Plus exhibit one or more high risk characteristics, including smoking, consuming alcohol, being teenagers, or having less than 12 years of education. The program is effective at helping women to resolve their high risk behaviors; among women enrolled in Prenatal Plus, almost one-half of the smokers quit before they delivered, and the majority of women who used alcohol and/or drugs quit. Funding for Prenatal Plus is derived from a combination of Medicaid, federal Block Grant dollars, and local funds. The program averted an estimated 94 low birth weight babies in 1997 which resulted in a significant cost savings to Medicaid.

Source: Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

Source: The Annie E. Casey Foundation

• About 25% of Colorado’s babies are born to unwed mothers. More than 70% of teens who have babies are single.

• More than 10% of Colorado babies are born to teenage moms. Only 28 percent of Colorado’s teen mothers, aged 15-19, are married.
• About 8% of births in Colorado are considered to have "three risk factors," meaning that the babies are born to single mothers under the age of 25 with less than a high school diploma.

Source: The 1998 Colorado Children’s Campaign©

*Preliminary numbers: subject to change

Source: Colorado Dept. of Public Health & Environment

Colorado state law provides that unmarried parents may complete and sign a voluntary acknowledgment of paternity form to establish a legal presumption of paternity. A research project in Colorado from 1991 through 1996 looked at reasons unmarried parents do and do not voluntarily acknowledge paternity. The common reasons mothers give to explain why they and their partners did not acknowledge paternity are:

• 44% - Not getting along with the father of the child;
• 25% - Concerned about custody or visitation;
• 15% - Doesn’t see the point;
• 14% - Father in Mexico or out of town;
• 10% - Father doesn’t want to be involved;
• 10% - Father doesn’t believe he is the father;
• 4% - Mother married to someone else;
• 4% - Mother doesn’t know who the father is;
• 4% - Feels it will be harder to get AFDC; and
• 2% - Doesn’t want the child support agency to pursue the father.

The relationship between benefit status and voluntary acknowledgment was strong and consistent across the study groups. Voluntary paternity acknowledgment was most attractive to parents who were financially independent and least attractive to those involved with the benefit system at the time of the child’s birth. Parents who were AFDC recipients at the time of the baby’s birth were the least likely to voluntarily acknowledge, with only 23 percent doing so. Parents who had previously been on AFDC but were not recipients at the time of birth and parents with no prior AFDC history had identical acknowledgment rates of 41 percent. While 41 percent of those with no prior Medicaid history agreed to voluntarily acknowledge paternity, it was agreed to by 27 percent of those with previous Medicaid history. Among those with older children, 39 percent of parents involved with the state-run child support system decided to voluntarily acknowledge as compared with 29 percent of those who had never been involved with the child support enforcement agency.

As to relationship factors, studies found that signers were significantly more likely to report cohabitation, regular contact, father attendance at the birth and father interest in being on the birth certificate. The results below show the percent of mothers who sign the paternity statement and the status of the relationship with the father:

Percent of Mothers Signing Paternity Statement By Relationship with Father

• 26% - Had just met the father;
• 44% - Dating him occasionally;
• 66% - Seeing him regularly;
• 72% - Father attended birth;
• 66% - Mother thinks father wanted to be on birth certificate;
• 11% - No contact with father at birth;
• 42% - In occasional contact;
• 65% - In regular contact;
• 93% - Living with the father;
• 20% - Have no idea where the relationship with the father will be in 2 years;
• 16% - Expect no contact from the father;
• 66% - Expect to see the father occasionally;
• 55% - Expect to see the father regularly; and
• 83% - Expect to be married to him.

Robert Conklin is Manager, Paternity Operations, and Donna Crowe is Program Specialist, Paternity Unit, Division of Child Support Enforcement, State of Colorado.