Would it be wrong of me to start an article with an “I told you so?” Probably, but I’m going to it anyhow. In numerous articles, I (and many of my esteemed colleagues) have said that when given the information and the tools to do it, teens will act responsibly when it comes to their sexual health. We now have more data to prove that because the CDC announced earlier this month that teen birth rates hit a record low in 2010. Last year, there were 34 births per 1,000 teens ages 15 to 19. This is a 9 percent decline from 2009 and marks the third year in a row that birth rates came down. (Teen pregnancy rates have not yet been released but because there was also a decline in the teen abortion rate, researcher believe that overall teen pregnancy rates went down as well.)

As the Guttmacher Institute explains this good news is almost exclusively linked to improvements in teens’ use of contraception.