In 2004, Czech women had 27,574 abortions — five times fewer than in the 1980s — and gave birth to 97,664 babies.

"This is a great success," said Dr. Jaroslav Zvěřina, member of the European Parliament and head of the Sexology Institute at Charles University. "It shows our women have gained the freedom to plan their families."

Released July 19, the figures document a sea change in family planning. In 1989, when contraceptive pills were rarely prescribed, nine in 10 pregnancies were aborted.

"Couples used the rhythm method or withdrawal," said Radim Uzel, executive director of the Czech Family Planning Association. "Withdrawal is risky, and the rhythm method was no good for young Czechs. They didn't want to have sex according to a calendar. They wanted to have sex when their parents weren't home."

The other method of birth control, Uzel says, "was abortion." In the late 1980s Czech doctors performed about 116,000 abortions a year; by the mid-1990s the number dropped to 58,000. It has more than halved since.

Experts cite a corresponding rise in the use of contraceptive pills: Some 40 percent of women in childbearing years now take the pill, according to the statistical office, up from about 15 percent in 1993. Less than 10 percent took the pill in the 1980s.

Eva Ložeková, a 29-year-old dentist who lives in Prague, says 90 percent of her friends take birth-control pills. She has been on the pill since she turned 20.

"It's a big freedom to have the possibility to decide when to have a child," she said. "My grandmother didn't have that choice. She was pregnant more than she wanted to be. She wanted two kids, but she had three — and she had two abortions."

Actually, birth-control pills were available in communist Czechoslovakia, according to Alena Králíková, director of education for the Gender Studies Center, but "patients didn't demand them and doctors didn't offer them."

Pharmacies sold condoms too, but since sex and family planning were taboo subjects, they never caught on, according to Uzel.

"Communist leaders sought total control over citizens," he said. "Sexual liberty, discussing sexuality, wasn't welcomed."

During the Cold War, limited access to contraceptives throughout the Eastern bloc resulted in staggeringly high abortion rates. In 1980s Russia, abortion rates were two times higher than birth rates, according to Uzel, and Russian women had an average of six abortions in their lifetimes.

Russian Abortion rates are still higher than birthrates, while Czechs have the fewest abortions per capita in the former Eastern bloc, according to the Czech Statistical Office. Sociologists say sex education has helped. Unlike their parents, Czech students today learn about birth-control pills as part of a standard course on family development.

"We have more information today and more access to contraceptives," said Králíková. "And maybe we have grown more responsible."

— Petr Kašpar and František Šístek contributed to this report.