Teen pregnancy rates in Barking and Dagenham are highest in capital

Teenage pregnancy is at its highest rate in Barking and Dagenham, new figures reveal.

The area tops the list of 32 London boroughs for the percentage of women aged 15 to 17 who conceived a child in 2011, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Of the 174 children conceived in Barking and Dagenham by a mother who was under 18 in 2011, a little over half went on to be aborted.

Only three other boroughs – Wandsworth, Lewisham and Croydon — have a lower percentage.

Compared with the previous year, there has been almost a ten per cent drop in the rate of teenage pregnancies in Barking and Dagenham, although the percentage of those leading to abortion has increased by around three per cent.

Over three years to 2011, there were a recorded 90 pregnancies in the borough where the mother was aged between 13 and 15. Of these 63 per cent went on to abortion.

Across Outer London, in figures which closely match the capital as a whole, almost 2,500 mothers under 18 conceived a child in 2011, a rate of just over one-fifth of the 1000 teenagers aged between 15-17 who were surveyed.

The number of conceptions that lead to abortion across the capital were at 61 per cent, the figures published yesterday show.