A Super Simple Way To Cut Teen Pregnancy and Abortion Rates by 75% [View all]

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A Super Simple Way To Cut Teen Pregnancy and Abortion Rates by 75%

by Tara Culp-Ressler at Think Progress

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/10/02/3574948/iud-study-teen-pregnancy-drop/

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Providing teenage girls with affordable access to long-lasting contraception, like intrauterine devices (IUDs), can cut their rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion by more than 75 percent, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday. The data suggests that teens can effectively prevent pregnancy when they’re educated about their full range of sexual health options.





The results come from a large research project, called the Contraceptive CHOICE study, being conducted in St. Louis. Researchers there are studying the impact of providing a group of low-income women with the birth control method of their choice free of charge, which is the same policy at the heart of the health law’s contraception mandate.

The latest data was derived from tracking a group of 1,404 teen girls enrolled in the Contraceptive CHOICE project, the vast majority of whom were already sexually active and at particular risk for unintended pregnancy. After those girls received counseling about their different birth control options, and were given a chance to select any method free of charge, 72 percent of the group opted for an IUD or an implant, which are more effective methods because they involve less user error. That’s dramatically higher than the national rate of teen IUD use, which currently hovers around five percent.

And after that, researchers observed a significant decline in the pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates among those teens. While sexually experienced U.S. teens have an annual pregnancy rate of 158.5 per 1000, for instance, that rate was just 34 per 1000 among the teen participants in the CHOICE project.



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