TEENAGE pregnancy rates in the county are at their lowest level for more than a decade.

Latest figures reveal there were 147 fewer pregnancies among under-18s in Oxfordshire than there were more than 10 years ago.

Experts said the addition of school nurses, better sexual health services and a booming economy were among the reasons.

Councillor Melinda Tilley, Oxfordshire’s cabinet member for children, education and families, said: “We have been putting in an awful lot of work with schools and youth places to try to stop teenage conception and we are seeing the results now.”

The new figures are in contrast to the mid-2000s when teen pregnancies were on the increase.

Experts in 2007 blamed Oxfordshire’s slow reaction to the problem for causing an increase of almost nine per cent in seven years.

In 2012, the latest figures recently released by the Office for National Statistics, there were 234 pregnancies among under 18-year-olds in the county.

The rate per 1,000 women under 18 has dropped from 36.4 pregnancies in 2002 to 20.7 in 2012.

Jessica McCullough from Didcot had just left school with 12 GCSEs when she discovered she was pregnant.

The news was a shock for the 16-year-old, who was on the pill at the time.

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She said: “Obviously it was a bit of a shock and a bit scary at first but I had a lot of support around me.”

The 18-year-old works in a fashion store one day a week and studies accountancy at Abingdon & Witney College while her mum and nan look after 18-month-old son Harley.

Ms McCullough, who plans to study accountancy, said she did not feel sex education lessons at school were effective but said: “A lot of people ask you how you are coping with being a mum. But I don’t ‘cope’. It’s not something I have to deal with. I love being a mum.”

Since September last year 35 trained health nurses have been working with teenagers across the county’s secondary schools.

They can administer emergency contraception if necessary and can give advice on sex, relationships and sexual health.

Wallingford School headteacher Wyll Willis said: “Children now have direct access to a health care professional who they can go to in confidence – it was brought in to help and it is clearly working.

“A few years ago teenagers had a bad reputation for all types of behaviour in Wallingford and around the county – but people have really rolled their sleeves up and parents deserve a lot of credit too.”

Oxford Spires Academy headteacher Sue Croft said a shift in culture was behind the fall. “It’s spreading an ethos of safe practices and I think things are going well in Oxford,” she said.

Cllr Hilary Hibbert-Biles, Oxfordshire cabinet member for public health, said there has been a lot of work to tackle the issue.

“We’ve made several changes – mainly we’ve doubled the number of school nurses and put nurses in secondary schools full-time,” she said.

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Oxford City Council leader Cllr Bob Price added: “It’s a combination of education – we have to keep banging away about the importance of contraception and thinking about the family situation and supporting young people – but also there is more emphasis in youth culture on developing your skills, so people are thinking about their future.”

Oxford has the highest rate at 26.4, while Vale of White Horse has the lowest at 13.6 per 1,000 women under 18, followed by South Oxfordshire at 16.1, then Cherwell at 24 and West Oxfordshire at 23. Nationally, the average is 27.7.

But while pregnancies are down, Mark Bhagwandin, regional education officer in the Thames Valley for Life, which runs a home for young mums in the Cowley area, said there was a rise in STDS.

He said: “There needs to be a corresponding reduction in the number of sexually transmitted infections because we have seen a dramatic rise in these alongside a reduction in teenage pregnancies.”