Teen pregnancies declined in Minnesota in 2022 after increasing in 2021, easing concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic had upset decades of progress on teen and adolescent sexual health. University of Minnesota experts were surprised by the rapid turnaround, but said it was a testament to sexual education programs at schools and clinics that were shut down early in the pandemic but eventually restored. The annual number of births among females 15 to 19 had yo-yoed in the 2020-2022 timeframe from 2,395 to 3,024 to 2,428, according to the U's adolescent sexual health report .
"It really was just a one-year blip," said Jill Farris, an author of the report who directs a U center for adolescent sexual health training and education. "Of course we'll keep our eye on things, but I would expect for next year and subsequent years for the trend to continue in a downward fashion." Teen pregnancies have declined more than 70% in Minnesota since 1990.
Whether teens had more sex amid the pandemic is unclear, because Minnesota only surveys students every three years on their social and health behaviors and has no data for 2020 and 2021. Sexual activity had been declining for years , but Farris said it wouldn't be surprising if it briefly increased during the pandemic, when teens endured periodic school closures and lost access to part-time jobs and extracurricular activities that can otherwise occupy their time. "Even though we were in lockdown and people weren't supposed to be seeing folks out.
