While U.S. teen birth rates remained the highest in the industrialized world, the long decline had amounted to a 45 percent reduction since 1991.

According to the figures for 2006, the latest year for which data are available, birth rates for teens ages 15-19 rose by 3.5 percent. This increase marks the largest growth in teen birth rates since 1989-90.

Analysts at liberal and conservative teen-pregnancy awareness groups had begun to notice the declines leveling off in recent years. Though dismayed, they weren't surprised by the upward spike.

The 2006 increase for teens 15-19 was from 40.5 per 1,000 to 41.9. The increases were greatest through the South and Southwest, and lowest in the Northeast.

Mississippi had the highest birth rate: 68.4 births per 1,000 teens ages 15-19. New Mexico and Texas trailed close behind.

New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts had the lowest birth rates. The only states with declines in teen birth rates from 2005 to 2006 were North Dakota, Rhode Island and New York.

North Carolina's rate was nearly 19 percent higher than the national average, according to the report. Like most states, North Carolina's teen pregnancy rate dropped from 1991 to 2005. But the number did grow 2 percent between 2005 and 2006 to 50 births per 1,000 teenage girls in the state.

North Carolina's 2007 official vital statistics showed even higher rates than the CDC report.

Statewide there were about 19,615 teen pregnancies, or 63 per 1,000 girls, according to the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics.

That snapshot put the teen pregnancy rate for New Hanover County at 49, Brunswick County at 67 and Pender County at 51.

"It's a large number that we see throughout the year," Ellen Harrison, New Hanover County's school health supervisor, told members of the county's health board Wednesday.

Michael Carrera, the director of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs at the Children's Aid Foundation in New York City, blamed economic stagnation among low-income families, which, he said, led to indifference about contraception.

"It is one thing to know about contraception, but to want to use it, you must also have knowledge of a good life," he said.

Carrera and other teen-welfare specialists who favor sex education and contraception also think the hundreds of millions of dollars that the Bush administration invested in abstinence-only programs would have been better spent on their approach.

The school systems in Brunswick and Pender counties offer abstinence-only curriculums.

New Hanover County's schools have an abstinence-only curriculum as well as a more comprehensive sex education program, which includes discussion about birth control, as an elective for middle school students.

Janice Crouse, executive director of the Beverly LaHaye Institute, an alliance of conservative women, faulted an atmosphere of sexual tolerance, especially on campuses, where teens are "under the influence of peers, and under pressure to drink."

Staff writer Vicky Eckenrode contributed to this McClatchy Newspapers report.