Washington County's adolescent birth rate remains the fifth highest in Maryland despite a significant one-year decline, according to the Governor's Counsel on Adolescent Pregnancy.
The birth rate for every 1,000 people aged 15 to 19 dropped from 59.5 in 1997 to 52.3 in 1998. Still, only Baltimore City, Dorchester, Wicomico and Worcester counties average more births for people of those ages.
"It was way up and now it's trending back down," said Eva Olah, an obstetrician at the Women's Health Center at Robinwood in Hagerstown. "We don't really know why it's gone down so much in the last couple of years."
The rate statewide declined for the seventh consecutive year, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend announced May 31.
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Birth rates among 15- to 19-year-olds dropped 20 percent in the last seven years, the first time since the 1970s.
Maryland's teen birth rate is 19 percent lower than the national rate, 51.1 births for every 1,000 teens.