Contraceptive patterns and premarital pregnancy among women aged 15--19 in 1976.

About 780,000 teenagers experience a premarital pregnancy each year. If they weren't using contraception, an additional 680,000 would become pregnant--a total of 1,460,000. However, if all who did not want a baby were practicing contraception consistently, we could reduce the number of pregnancies by at least 313,000. Only 467,000 would become pregnant, and half of these pregnancies would be wanted.