Pregnancies in teenage girls, of particular concern because of special problems affecting both mother and child. In the United States today, approximately one of every eight births is to an adolescent mother. Most adolescent girls become pregnant without intending to do so. Some do not wish to keep the baby and so are faced with the difficult choice of having an abortion or placing the child for adoption. In the past, many people have emphasized that bearing the child for adoption was the better course, thinking that abortion caused both short- and long-term stress for teenage girls. Some recent studies have indicated, however, that—for at least some young girls—having an abortion may be less traumatic than giving up a baby to other parents, as well as less disruptive to their education and to their lives in general. Those who choose to bear and keep their child often fail to finish school and lack essential job skills for later in life, just as those who choose abortion are sometimes haunted by the life that might have been.