The North-East has some of the highest levels of teenage pregnancies in the UK, according to a report by the international children's charity, Unicef.

And the UK has the second highest teenage birth rate in the developed world, it said.

There were 31 births per 1,000 British girls aged between 15 and 19 in 1998, a Unicef survey of 28 countries revealed. Only the US was ahead of Britain, with 52 births per 1,000 teenagers - four times the EU average.

In the North-East, the most recent available figures showed that the Wear Valley, County Durham, with 78.9 out of every thousand girls aged between 15 and 17 becoming pregnant between 1996 and 1998, had a rate almost double the national average.

Other teenage pregnancy blackspots are Easington, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough, although the whole region has above-average rates.

The Unicef report said that the "alarmingly high" UK figure may be due to Britain's transformation into a society where sexual codes are more relaxed, without corresponding changes to advise teenagers.

"Contraceptive advice and services may be formally available, but in a closed atmosphere of embarrassment and secrecy," it said. "Or as one British teenager puts it, 'It sometimes seems as if sex is compulsory but contraception has failed'."

This more sexualised society has led to a fall in the average age when British youngsters lose their virginity, from 20 for men and 21 for women 40 years ago, to 17 for both sexes today.

The number of girls having underage sex has also doubled in the past ten years, according to the report.

In comparison, teenagers in the Netherlands are five times less likely to give birth than British teenagers.

The Dutch have the advantages of a "relatively inclusive society with more open attitudes towards sex and education including contraception," the report said.