Oral, injectable contraceptives and Plan B are now staples in the nurses’ offices at 13 NYC public schools. The pills are part of CATCH, Connecting Adolescents To Comprehensive Health, a program to keep sexually active teens from having babies.
Oral, injectable contraceptives and Plan B are now staples in the nurses’ offices at 13 NYC public schools. The pills are part of CATCH, Connecting Adolescents To Comprehensive Health, a program to keep sexually active teens from having babies.
Of course, fourteen-year-olds shouldn’t be having babies, but handing hormones to little kids without a physical exam or even a medical history is really bad medicine in my book. Here’s why.
First, estrogen and progesterone are prescription medications for a reason: they’re dangerous for some girls. If, for instance, a young girl has one of several medical problems like a blood clotting disorder that she doesn’t know about, these hormones can cause her to have a stroke. Even if she doesn’t have an underlying medical problem, these hormones can still cause strokes in a very small percentage of users.
Those dispensing contraceptives know that but figure that the percentage is small enough to warrant mass use. Not if your daughter is in that percentage. So, be careful, NYC nurses who hand these out. Who’s going to take the heat when a fifteen-year-old suddenly can’t walk, smile, or think clearly after a few doses?
Second, there’s the issue of efficacy. Yes, birth control pills and Plan B work when taken correctly; but in my experience, many kids don’t do so. The girls who are having sex at fourteen are forgetful. They simply don’t take the pills regularly and therefore, birth control pills don’t work.
Plan B does prevent pregnancy if the girl takes it within 72 hours of having unprotected intercourse, but let’s look at what the medical data really says about Plan B. In three excellent, major medical studies (see links at the end of this post), the researchers found that yes, Plan B works to prevent pregnancy when girls take it; but overall, teen pregnancies weren’t reduced in a given population. What does this mean? Simply, that girls take it but continue to engage in unprotected sex and stop taking it.
So, ultimately, if the point of giving out plan B is to drive down teen pregnancy rates in a school full of girls, the best studies so far show that it doesn’t do that. Kids keep having sex. The problem isn’t the pregnancy; it’s the behavior of the kids. And all the estrogen and progesterone in the world won’t change that.
