WARRENVILLE — The problem of teenage girls having babies in Aiken County isn't as big as it used to be, but it still is a significant one.
Doug Taylor, the chief program officer for the South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, reported Thursday that the teen birth rate locally has declined 30 percent from 2008 to 2013.
The rate among 15- to 19-year-olds was 45.8 per 1,000 females in 2008 and 32.1 in 2013.
Based on the campaign's records, the 2013 rate was the lowest ever in the county.
Aiken County ranked 33rd among South Carolina's 46 counties in 2013 based on the teen birth rate. Edgefield County ranked 15th with a rate of 43.8 per 1,000 females.
No. 1 was Allendale County with a rate of 76.9.
The teen birth rate for Aiken County in 2013 was slightly lower than the overall rate for South Carolina (32.6), but higher than the figure for this country as a whole (26.6).
Taylor spoke about Aiken County's statistics during an event at Bobby's Bar-B-Q that was part of the campaign's 2015 Road Show. The organization's representatives are visiting approximately 80 locations in the Palmetto State to talk about reducing the number of teen pregnancies.
Helping Hands of Aiken held the Road Show stop in Aiken County.
Carmen Landy, Helping Hands' executive director, said her agency is working with the campaign to obtain a federal grant that would fund an evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention program for Aiken County that would be used in the public schools. A couple of other South Carolina counties also would receive money from the grant.
"There would be full implementation throughout the school district. Every child would get access to a particular curriculum if we get the funding," Landy said.
Community educators Kandace Cave and Kevin Banks discussed the programs for teenagers that Aiken Youth Empowerment, a Helping Hands program, are providing.
They said one of the most effective is the RealCare Infant Simulator program.
"We always get excellent feedback from the parents, as well as the students," Cave said. "The simulators cry like real babies. They need to be changed, and they need to be burped. They (teenagers) get a realistic experience without becoming teen parents, and it lets them know that it isn't as easy as they think to take care of a child."
In 2014, 288 male and female students participated in the simulator program. In that group, 69.2 percent agreed or strongly agreed that being a teen parent was more difficult than they thought. The motivation to avoid becoming parents until later increased in 58.2 percent.
Dede Biles is a general assignment reporter for the Aiken Standard.