This isn't generally the type of article I publish here, but these statistics were quite unsettling to me:

"The news is unsettling for any parents of young girls: One in four teen-aged girls in the U.S. has a sexually transmitted infection. That’s what researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are reporting in the December 2009 issue of the journal Pediatrics.

As if that data isn’t disturbing enough, the newly published findings come on the heels of a CDC survey that found 15- to 19-year-old girls had the largest number of chlamydia and gonorrhea cases last year compared to every other age group. Teen pregnancy rates are continuing to climb too: Earlier this year, the government reported that 435,000 births in 2006 were to 15- to 19-year-old girls—21,000 more than the year before. Yikes.

Look at that data, and it seems pretty clear that sex-ed programs are doing little to deter teens from having sex, and not enough to persuade them to use protection when they do. That puts even more of the onus on parents to fill in the gap. Not sure where to start? Here are 10 tips to help get the message through to your kids before it’s too late:"

http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/...html?pageNum=1