Teenage abortions have reached their lowest level for more than 40 years, new figures have revealed.

Of the 11,475 pregnancies that were terminated in Scotland last year, 1,966 involved women under the age of 20.

Official health service statistics showed this is a drop of 332 from the total of 2,298 in 2013 and is the lowest since 1973.

The number of abortions carried out in Scotland peaked at 13,908 in 2008 but since then the total has been declining - with 2014 having the lowest number of pregnancies that were terminated since 1995.

Girls under the age of 16 had 172 abortions last year, less than half the number of procedures performed on women aged 40 and above, which totalled 441.

The largest number of abortions involved women aged 20 to 24, with 3,495 terminations carried out by women in this age group, followed by 2,683 pregnancies ended by women aged 25 to 29.

Those aged between 30 and 34 had 1,824 abortions in 2014, slightly more than the total of 1,794 in the 16 to 19 age group. Meanwhile, there were 1,066 terminations carried out on women aged between 35 and 39.

But the number of abortions on women from the most deprived areas was double the total in the most affluent communities.

In 2014 women from the least deprived areas underwent 1,594 terminations while women in the poorest areas chose to end 3,251 pregnancies.

The statistics also showed that of the 11,475 terminations that were performed last year, 3,635 were carried out on a woman who had had at least one abortion before.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "It is encouraging to see that the abortion rate in Scotland has continued to fall annually since 2008, making it now the lowest since 1995 and the most sustained period of decline since records began.

"We have been working closely with health boards and local authorities to address unintended pregnancy and these figures demonstrate that overall we are moving in the right direction.

"The rate of abortions in the under 16-year-olds is now the lowest of all the age groups and lowest since recording of this age group began in 2001.

"However, we continue to work to promote sexual health and parenthood education for all young people, including delivering targeted sexual health interventions and increasing the availability of sexual health services."