Wait for it...

The next they are shut away in their rooms, playing computer games and music loud enough for the whole road to enjoy.

If only that, coupled with hair gel consumption, was all there was to worry about.

There's bullying, peer pressure, smoking, drinking - and, of course, sex.

Ever since the 1980s when the HIV virus hit the headlines, the message about safer sex couldn't have been clearer.

For the hormone-fuelled young today there is more education than ever before, more information and more help - yet still the UK has the highest teenage birth rate in western Europe and there are more problems than just pregnancy.

Just this week the Daily Echo reported that girls as young as 14 in this area are risking infertility by contracting chlamydia, the most common sexually transmitted infection in this country.

Levels have rocketed by more than 25 per cent in young people aged 24 and under in Dorset and Hampshire since 2001.

From November, Boots stores in London will be providing free screening for the infection and expects to carry out 50,000 screenings a year. If the two-year pilot scheme is successful it will be rolled out nationally.

And in a twist on the teenage itch, new television programme, No Sex Please We're Teenagers, screams onto our screens tonight.

The series set 12 London youngsters an abstinence challenge as they pledged to avoid all sexual activity for five months.

Meanwhile, the number of teenage conceptions in Bournemouth has fallen.

Latest figures reveal the conception rate has dropped to 32.5 per cent per 1,000 15 to 17-year-olds, the highest percentage reduction for the year in the south west.

The figures show a 36.9 per cent reduction change from the 1998 rate, which had placed the town above the national average.

It's the result of a multi-agency approach, said Sue Meakin, sexual health manager and teenage pregnancy co-ordinator for the Bournemouth Teaching Primary Care Trust.

"We have done a lot of work together with teenagers, including supplying free emergency contraception. We would prefer girls and boys under 16 not to be having sex but there is a lot of pressure on young people to be in a sexual relationship," she said.

The average age to lose your virginity is 16 though, she added.

"There are a lot of outside influences from the media, television and films. They can give the impression that everybody is having sex.

"A lot of people think because we hear of 13 and 14-year-olds having sex that everybody is doing it. That's not true."

Work involving input from young people is under way across the area.

"A group of teenage mums and dads are now going into schools to talk about the realities of being a teenage parent. Young people listen to other young people. They listen to their peers," said Sue.

And at New Platform Young People's Project in Boscombe, the mums' group has written and starred in a film about a young girl who becomes pregnant after being bullied by peer pressure into having sex.

But health professionals are also calling for more parents to talk to their teenagers about sexual health and the importance of delaying sex until they feel more confident and more in control.

It's a topic we are not so at ease with as our European neighbours.

With that in mind, a six-week sex and relationships parenting course is being run in Bournemouth next month.

"Many parents aren't informed. They did not have good sex education at school," said Sue. "They don't know about chlamydia and the risks of cervical cancer. They don't know how to approach the subject, where to start."

No Sex Please We're Teenagers is on BBC2 on Sept 6 at 9pm.

For more information...

To find out about the parenting course contact Sue Meakin on 01202 456266.

The f-risky website - provided by the Bournemouth Sexual Health Awareness Group, part of the Bournemouth Teaching Primary Care Trust - gives information on all aspects of sexual health. If you are worried, confused or need information, log on to f-risky.co.uk or call or text 07770 266366.