Surprising News About the Morning After Pill
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Last week, we were stoked when the American Academy of Pediatrics made a statement encouraging doctors to provide counseling and advance emergency contraceptive prescriptions to teenage girls. The organization explained its position by saying that girls are more likely to use emergency contraception if they have it on hand.
However, the New York Times dug a bit deeper into the AAP's claim this week and found that advance emergency contraceptive prescriptions don't necessarily curb the teen pregnancy rate, at least according to research performed on the subject. Two studies, one in 2000 and one in 2005, actually found having an advance prescription can make teens more likely to have unprotected sex and less lax about using birth control.
What's more, the Times explains that emergency contraception might actually be less effective than what studies examining its success rate claim. Key information that researchers need to draw their conclusions, like the date of their subjects' last menstrual cycles, is often misreported, skewing their results. So, while some studies might say that the morning after pill works for X amount of days post-unprotected sex, this information may need to be taken with a grain of salt.
While this doesn't mean that teenage girls—or women in general—shouldn't use emergency contraception, what seems to be the message here is that we shouldn't rely on it as a method of birth control. And, perhaps more importantly, practicing safe sex should still be a priority—no matter what.
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