Washington County may have the most cause to celebrate Mother’s Day this Sunday. The most recent data from 2015 shows that the county has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the state.

There are different facets to take in consideration though. Compared to 2000 data, the number of births to teens in Washington County has gone up, but given a larger number of births overall, the percentage of teen pregnancy births has decreased since 2000, from 4.5% to 4.2%. Washington County Public Health Administrator Danielle Pettit-Majewski comments on the rate decrease, “Which is good, because we were seeing a couple of years ago when we were looking at this data we were seeing the state of Iowa dip in teen pregnancy rates and we were seeing Washington County climb, and so I still do think that it is good news that we are now declining in our teen pregnancy rate.”

Despite having a smaller rate than in previous years, Washington County currently has a higher rate of teen pregnancy births than the state of Iowa. Data shows that at a rate of pregnancy per 100,000 people, Washington County is at 23.84, while the state is at 21.83. Pettit-Majewski says, “For teen pregnancy as compared to the state, Washington County is higher overall than the rest of the state on average, and we are higher than the counties immediately surrounding us, but then there are spots all across the state where it is a higher birth rate than what we have in Washington County.” Pettit-Majewski said that evidence from the CDC shows a combination of reasons for a lower teen pregnancy percentage, from more teens abstaining from sex and more teens who are sexually active using birth control. As the Iowa legislature approved a bill to cut state funding from Planned Parenthood, it is a question of how that may affect teen pregnancy rates in the next few years.