Oladji, Jeannette: Teens and Contraception

            In her article, Milly Dawson was trying to convince society that people should focus on long acting contraception, such as IUDs, rather on than short-acting contraceptive methods. Not because those methods are ineffective but because she believes they don’t afford the best protection against unwanted pregnancies as do long-acting contraceptives.

            According to updated clinical opinion from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), contraceptive implants and intrauterine devices afford the best protection against unintended pregnancy among adolescents, and the short-acting contraceptive methods, favored by the vast majority of teenagers who use contraception, have lower adherence and higher pregnancy rates compared with long-acting reversible contraceptives. According to Milly Dawson parents of teens choose short-acting methods for their girls because they believe longer acting methods are very dangerous and can cause infertility, especially IUDs. For parents, their girl's autonomy is very important, which means they are free to choose from short-acting methods and change them whenever they want rather than using long-acting methods

            To all these beliefs Milly Dawson was trying to let parents know that the risk of pregnancy is more dangerous than the risk of using any contraceptive method, including the IUD. Her advice is that people should forget about those misperceptions and use long-acting contraceptives including IUDs. All of which are more effective than condoms and birth control pills.  According to Lauren Hartman, a clinical fellow in adolescent medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, “Despite increased use of contraceptives by adolescents in the last twenty years, effective methods are still underused and too many sexually active teens do not use condoms." What she was trying to say is that even though that’s the parents' choice, those teens fail to use the methods chosen by the parents and that causes the high rate of unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. Her advice is that parents can help improve contraceptive use among teens, especially the IUDs which she believes are the best and long-acting contraceptive methods.