Teenage pregnancy
These figures for teenage pregnancy are for England, Wales and Scotland for the under 19s in 2004 and were compiled by the Teenage Pregnancy Unit, part of the Department of Education and Skills. They are the most up to date statistics available and were issued in March 2006.

There were 77,570 teenagers recorded as pregnant in the year 2004. This does not mean there were a corresponding number of babies born. Some pregnancies would have ended naturally through miscarriage or stillbirth and other girls will have chosen abortions.

How we calculated the figures for the counter
This figure has been divided by the number of days in a year and then the number of hours in a day. We then broke down this figure of 8.85 pregnancies per hour, to calculate that on average one girl becomes pregnant around every 7 minutes in England, Wales and Scotland.

Chlamydia and gonorrhoea
Chlamydia and gonorrhoea can have devastating effects for sufferers leading to infertility and pain.

The figures for these sexually transmitted infections (STI) were compiled by the Health Prevention Agency, a government funded agency aimed at protecting public health.

They show that young people have the highest rates of these diseases – and young women are particularly at risk. Once again, the statistics are compiled from 2004 figures for 16 to 19 year olds in the UK. In that year 2,557 females and 2012 males between 16 and 19 were found to have gonorrhoea. In the same year 7,618 males and 19,969 females between 16 and 19 were found to have chlamydia.

How we calculated the figures for the counter
These figures were broken down into a daily, then hourly rate to be used in our digital counter. They illustrate that a teenager between 16 and 19 contracts chlamydia on average every 20 minutes and gonorrhoea every two hours.