May is Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month. At first, I ruled out writing about the issue. After all these years of awareness, I figured we surely had a handle on it. Well, we did have a handle on it. In 1985, the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Coalition of N.C. was established, with the help of the United Way, to reduce teen pregnancy rates. North Carolina hit its teen pregnancy peak in 1992 and for the next decade, the numbers declined.

But in 2003, everything changed, said James Martin, the coalition’s development communications manager. “We started to plateau in 2003 and we’ve actually gone up.”

Currently, 55 teenagers become pregnant every day in North Carolina, up from 51 in 2006. In 2007, in Wake County alone, 1,303 girls between the ages of 13 and 19 became pregnant. This issue gets everyone all riled up, another reason for my initial reluctance; I could just envision my inbox filling up with scathing e-mails. I don’t know if it’s our country’s Puritan underpinnings or what, but there is still a stigma attached to talking to our kids about how babies are made —whether they’re 8, 18 or 28. Talk may be cheap, but in this case it goes a long way. “Research has shown and we have found that the most important determinant of whether or not a child becomes sexually active is their parents,” said Joyce Wood, executive director of Wake Teen Medical Services, a pediatric medical practice for patients ages 10 to 23. “Kids want to hear what their parents have to say regardless of how much they might protest that they don’t want to talk to their parents.”

Wood says parents often don’t engage in a candid conversation because they don’t want to give their kids any ideas. This frustrates Wood because the logic of the argument doesn’t translate to topics parents will talk about with their kids.

“No one has a problem talking to their children about drugs. No one has a problem talking with their children about smoking or drinking,” Wood said. “Yet, when it comes to sexual activity, parents don’t seem to be able to broach that topic. My stance is you should be talking to your kids about all these issues. The more you talk about these issues, the easier it becomes.”

Martin says “the talk” should instead be an ongoing conversation. “You want to talk early to them when they start asking questions about where babies come from,” he said. “You want to give them accurate information and age-appropriate information.”

There’s no doubt kids pick up information — or misinformation — at school, but not from educators. That changed in 1996 when the state mandated an abstinence-until-marriage program for every school system in North Carolina. Counties do have the option to introduce comprehensive sex education programs, but most have opted out due to the logistics and bureaucracy involved with getting those programs approved.

There’s a bill in this session of the General Assembly, the N.C. Healthy Youth Act, that could change things. It would let parents settle the decision of sex education in the schools on a child-by-child basis. At school enrollment, parents would select either an abstinence-until-marriage track or a comprehensive sexual education track for their child. All schools would be required to offer both tracks in grades seven through nine. The bill has passed the House and is now residing in the Senate.

Professionals who work with the issue are watching it closely.

“Regardless of what your political viewpoint is, I think everyone agrees that teen pregnancy is not something that we want to have happen,” said Wood.

Martin adds: “There’s a cycle issue where the children of teen parents tend to become teen parents themselves. You also get issues where the male children of teen parents tend to become involved in the juvenile justice system. They’re unfortunate statistics.”

That’s not to say that some teen parents don’t do well. But Parenting is hard — even when you’re older. And while talking about it won’t prevent all teen pregnancies, it’s a great start.

“Be clear about expectations and what you think,” said Wood. “Be open.

Teens need to have good information so they can make the best choice for themselves.”