According to a report released Wednesday by the Center for Disease Control, Mississippi is the state with the nation’s highest teen pregnancy rate, superseding Texas and New Mexico for the dubious honour.

Mississippi’s teen pregnancy rate was 60% higher than the 2006 national average, says the CDC. The same rate was over 50% higher in Texas and New Mexico.

The three ‘podium’ states have large numbers of black and Hispanic teenagers, a demographic historically associated with higher birth rates.

Trailing the list was New England, with its and two other states’ birth rate at half the national average.

It’s unknown why Mississippi jumped to first place, but the one-year increase of some 1,000 teen births may be a statistical blip, says Ron Cossman, a Mississippi State University researchers specializing in children’s health statistics.

Over a year ago, a preliminary report on the data from 2006 showed that U.S. teen birth rates had risen for the first time after 15 years, and the new numbers are the first to provide state-by-state information on the matter.

This latest report is based on reviews of all birth certificates in 2006. There were significant increases in teen birth rates in 26 states.

Brady Hamilton, a CDC statistician who worked on the report remarked it was a nationwide occurrence.

Some 435,000 of the U.S.’s 4.3 million births in 2006 were from mothers aged 15 to 19, that is 21,000 more teen births than 2005.

The largest numerical increases were noted in the most populated states. California, Texas and Florida together accounted for almost 30% of the additional teen births

Certain experts have blamed the rise on increased federal funding for abstinence-only sex education which does not teach teenagers how to use condoms and other contraceptive methods. According to them, this accounts for the increase being so widespread.

The other side of the debate claims that contraceptive-based sex education is still common, and that the increase in teen pregnancies indicates it is failing. Other factors include the increasing cost of some methods of birth control, and their scarcity in certain communities, according to Stephanie Birch, director of maternal and child health programs for the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services.

Birch said that jubilant media portrayals of celebrity pregnancies may have been a factor as well. "They make it out to be very glamorous," she said, noting that Alaskan teen pregnancies were up 6 percent in 2006.

In Mississippi, there were about 68 births for every 1,000 women, ages 15 through 19 in 2006. The New Mexico rate was 64 per 1,000; Texas was 63.

The national birth rate for females in that age group was about 42 per 1,000. New Hampshire, with a rate of 19 per 1,000, was the nation's lowest.