Birth
control: these two words make most parents decidedly uncomfortable. Because of this discomfort, not only do many
parents fail to discuss safe sex with their progeny, they are also unaccepting
of birth control itself. Statistics
from the ACOG Committee on Adolescent Health Care point out that teenagers
account for 20% of all unintended pregnancies, and 42% of teenagers aged 15 to
19 have engaged in sexual intercourse.[1] In today’s era of sexual freedom, it is high
time for “birth control” to stop being a forbidden phrase.
For
parents that do not mind their daughters being on some form of birth control,
short-term methods such as daily pills have been the protection of choice as
opposed to long-term methods like IUDs, according to the Journal of Adolescent Health. According to the survey, the form of
birth control with the highest parental acceptance was the pill, with a paltry
59%. At the bottom of the list were IUDs
with 18%. Physicians believe that the
reasons parents are against long-term methods of birth control are the
association of long-term methods with a long-term sexual relationship and
safety concerns.[2] Unsurprisingly, the results also showed that
the more the parents treated their daughter as an independent person, the likelier
they were to accept birth control. While
teenagers today definitely practice safer sex than they did in years past, the
occurrences of sexually transmitted diseases as well as unwanted pregnancies
are still too high.
The
long-term forms of birth control so abjured by parents have proven to be more
effective with adolescents because there is much less responsibility for the
teenager. Also, teenagers are more
content with these forms of birth control.
According to the study, 86% of teenagers stuck with long-term birth
control over a period of a year compared to 55% for the more common short-term
birth control. Even more damning is the
fact that teenagers using long-term contraceptives are 22 times less likely to
have an unwanted pregnancy compared to those using short-term contraceptives. Encouraging the use of long-term forms of
birth control, obstetricians and gynecologists continue to try to spread
greater information about pregnancy prevention to parents and their children.[3]
[1]
Charles Bankhead, IUDs, Implants Best
Teen Birth Control, ACOG Says, http://www.medpagetoday.com/OBGYN/GeneralOBGYN/34895
(September 2012).
[2]
Milly Dawson, Parents Prefer Some, Often
Less-Effective, Birth Control Methods for Teens, http://www.cfah.org/hbns/archives/getDocument.cfm?documentID=22547
(September 2012).
[3]
Charles Bankhead, IUDs, Implants Best
Teen Birth Control, ACOG Says, http://www.medpagetoday.com/OBGYN/GeneralOBGYN/34895
(September 2012).
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