[1] The series features an ensemble cast including Shailene Woodley as Amy Juergens, a teenage girl who becomes pregnant.

The series focuses on the relationships between Amy, her family and friends as they deal with her unexpected pregnancy and teen motherhood.

[4][5] Additionally, the series faced backlash for its heavy emphasis on abstinence and its portrayal of moral and religious perspectives, which some viewers and critics felt were overly judgmental or out of touch with the realities of teenage life.

[6] Despite its polarizing reception, The Secret Life of the American Teenager was a ratings success for ABC Family, particularly in its early seasons.

By its fifth and final season, the show averaged around 1.5 million viewers per episode, a significant drop from its earlier highs.

[9] In 2013, ABC Family announced that the fifth season would be its last, concluding the series with a two-hour finale that drew 3.3 million viewers.

[10] In season one, fifteen-year-old Amy Juergens—a French horn player at Grant High School—discovers that she is pregnant after having sex at band camp with playboy Ricky Underwood.

Amy first confides in her two best friends Lauren and Madison about it, where they consider her options: terminating the pregnancy, adoption, or keeping the baby.

Grace loses her virginity to Jack on the same night her father dies in a plane crash and expresses guilt.

Ashley begins her freshman year at Grant High and struggles with Amy's legacy as a teenage mother.

Ben is expressing jealousy due to Ricky's constant presence, leading him and Amy to end their relationship.

Amy gets an opportunity to attend a music program for single mothers and will be in New York for six weeks, where Ben tells her about Adrian's pregnancy.

Ashley graduates high school early and decides to leave Los Angeles to go on a country-wide road trip with her homeschooled friend, Toby.

[15] In the United Kingdom Secret Life is available on ABC Studios via sky on demand It broken up into eight seasons in contrast to the original five.

[27] Each Secret Life season is released on DVD in separate volumes by Buena Vista Home Entertainment under the ABC Family brand.

The site's critics consensus reads, "While The Secret Life of the American Teenager manages to show teens behaving like real teenagers, forced dialogue and an overall lack of originality leaves the show stranded at the border of soap opera parody.

[38] The New York Post praised the series for having a set of characters that are "... real and come from families of all stripes – from intact to single-parent households to one boy in foster care..."[39] However, most mainstream critics did not embrace the show, likening it to an after-school special "filled with didactic messages and a lotta wooden acting," in the words of Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly.

Suffering from gag-worthy dialog, horrific plot twists, terrible acting, and characters who not even the best of 3-D glasses could give depth to, it's a wonder how this show stays on the air.

She remained hopeful that the writers will not just turn these new problems into issues of the week, instead allowing time for the characters to grieve Marshall's death, deal with Anne's accidental pregnancy, and explore the more emotionally complex aspects of teenage sex.

[44] Secret Life received the highest premiere viewership ratings ever for an ABC Family original program.

[48] On Monday, June 22, 2009, Secret Life began its second season, posting a series high with 4.68 million viewers.

[49][50] With more than 4.55 million people watching the season two mid-season premiere, Secret Life became ABC Family's most-watched telecast in the 12–34 age range and teen demographics.

It increased nearly one million total viewers over its second season's mid-season finale, and was number one in all target demographics for the hour.

Monday's Secret Life ranks as summer's number one scripted premiere on cable with 1.2 million viewers adults 18–34.

The following is a table with the average estimated number of viewers per episode, each season of The Secret Life of the American Teenager on ABC Family.

The series theme, sung by Molly Ringwald, is an upbeat version of Cole Porter's "Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)".

Other noteworthy music featured in the installments includes: On June 15, 2010, The Secret Diary of Ashley Juergens was published.

[79] While discussing the differences between novel writing and scriptwriting, Turk stated, "We watched the episodes together and then talked briefly about ideas we each had and what we thought Ashley would have to say about whatever the storyline was.