400,000 girls aged 10 to 19 get pregnant in Mexico every year

Every year 400,000 girls aged 10 and 19 get pregnant in Mexico. And the figures have not dropped since 2006.

Between 2006 and 2014, 3.5 million children were born to mothers aged less than 19, according to the latest figures of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI). In 2009 the figure was even more alarming: 441,507 teens became mothers.

Moreover, 280,000 women leave school every year due to pregnancy, according to data provided by Mexico's Ministry of Education.

In Mexico 22 million teenagers have already started their sexual life, according to INEGI.

In 2013, Coahuila and Baja California Sur had the highest rate of teenage pregnancies: 55 in every thousand girls aged 19 or less, followed by Tlaxcala, Chihuahua and Michoacán, with 47 and 43 respectively.

According to experts, unfriendly teen clinics, birth control programs without clear objectives and double standards contribute to teen pregnancies.

Dr. Josefina Lira Plascencia, coordinator of the Teen Clinic of the National Institute of Perinatology, says that “teenagers need to find friendly specialists at health centers, not doctors and nurses who question their sexuality.”