LANSING (AP) The number of pregnant women in Michigan who smoke is down from 1990, but the rate of pregnant smokers in the state is higher than the national average, according to a report released today.

In Michigan, 17 percent of pregnant women smoked in 1998, which is down from the 23 percent who smoked in 1990 but higher than the 12.9 percent national average, according to the latest national Kids Count report that focuses on the key indicators of maternal and infant health.

The "Right Start" report, which surveys nine years of data from the 50 states and the nation"s 50 biggest cities, ranked Michigan 32nd for the percent of women who smoked during pregnancy.

In Detroit, the number of pregnant women who smoked also dropped from 24 percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 1998. But smoking during pregnancy was more common in Detroit than the 10.8 percent 50-city average, the report said.

The report also found that the number of repeat births to Michigan teen-agers dropped from 25 percent to 21 percent in 1998. Michigan ranked 33rd nationally for the percentage of teens who already had a child when they gave birth that year.

Michele Corey, community advocacy coordinator at Michigan"s Children, said the percentage of teen births was stagnate from 1996-98.

"This trend suggests a need to increase our targeted interventions to first-time teen mothers," Corey said.

While Michigan made the most improvements in the areas of smoking during pregnancy and teen-agers having babies, the state received the lowest national rankings in those areas.

Jane Zehnder-Merrell, director of Kids Count in Michigan for the Michigan League for Human Services, wants to see lower rates in pregnant women smoking and teen-age births.

"Clearly we"re not improving fast enough," she said. "With mothers smoking all this tobacco settlement money is not being used to address this issue."

Michigan ranked 22nd for the number of births to women under 20 (12 percent) and the number of births to women with less than a high school education (18 percent).

In Detroit, the only Michigan city included in the report"s city-by-city comparisons, there were no improvements in the percent of births to mothers with late or no prenatal care, low birth-weight babies and early births.

But Michigan and the rest of the nation saw a slight increase in low birth-weight babies and early births.

The number of yearly births in Detroit dropped from 24,240 in 1990 to 16,340 in 1998, according to "The Right Start City Trends" study. During the 1990s, four of every five babies born in that city were black.