More teens using rhythm method for birth control

ATLANTA (AP) — A growing number of teen girls say they use the rhythm method for birth control, and more teens also think it's OK for an unmarried female to have a baby, according to a government survey released today.

The report may help explain why the teen pregnancy rate is no longer dropping.

Overall, teenage use of birth control and teen attitudes toward pregnancy have remained about the same since a similar survey was done in 2002.

But there were some notable exceptions in the new survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

First, about 17 percent of sexually experienced teen girls say they had used the rhythm method — timing their sex to avoid fertile days to prevent getting pregnant. That's up from 11 percent in 2002.

They may have been using another form of birth control at the same time. But the increase is considered worrisome because the rhythm method doesn't work about 25 percent of the time, said Joyce Abma, the report's lead author. She's a social scientist at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.