And, conversely, the rate for older women having babies is rising. Sort of like a seesaw, isn’t it? One goes up, the other goes down.

According to a recently-released report from the National Center for Health Statistics, teen pregnancy rates fell around 40 percent between 1990 and 2008 for Americans between the ages of 15 and 19. The pregnancy rate for American teens was 69.8 per 1,000 women in 2008. The decline in teen pregnancy was greater in younger teens than older teens. Younger teen, between the ages of 15 and 17, pregnancy rates declined nearly 50 percent while older teen pregnancy rates declined around 33 percent. In fact, the trend continued for women in their 20s as well. For women over 30, the pregnancy rate has decrease, with the 40 plus crowd seeing the biggest jump.

The report also shows abortions across the board, decreased during this period as well; for teens, by a whopping 56 percent.

It’s important to note that the report only covers statistics up to 2008, the last year that data was available for some reason. That’s a full year before MTV launched it’s popular reality television show, “16 and Pregnant,” which has worried some teen pregnancy activists because they believe it glamorizes teen pregnancy and could be having an adverse effect on teen pregnancy rates. Others claim the opposite is true. If you’ve ever known anyone who had a baby in her teens, you know there’s nothing glamorous about it.