Teen use of morning-after pill is climbing, but proportion of teens

The results showed that 1 out of 5 teenage girls have used the morning after pill, which is vastly more frequent than the 1 in 12 that was reported a decades ago.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention adds that the average number of teen driving fatalities doubles in June, July and August.

Use of the morning-after pill has risen sharply among teenage girls over the last decade, as the teen pregnancy rate has steadily fallen.

Previously, the morning-after pill could not be purchased without a medical prescription.

However, he also said that the fact that teens employ this method proves that they are not using other contraceptive methods that are reliable and healthy, such as condoms, regularly.

The report also reveals that teenage sex rates are not as high as they used to be in the past.

Morning-after pills can cut chances of pregnancy by nearly 90 percent if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. Though the percentage has declined significantly over the past 25 years-by some 14 percent girls and 22 percent for boys-the figures haven’t budged in a statistically significant way since 2002.

The findings are based on survey data spanning 1988 to 2013, called the National Survey of Family Growth, offering a glimpse at national estimates of sexual activity, contraceptive use and childbearing among teenagers aged 15-19.

Given American women began using oral contraceptives in the late 1950s, it was not surprising the teen birth rate in 2013 was just 27 per 1,000 people.

The report also states boys are more likely to lose their virginity at an earlier age than girls, but by age 17, the likelihood that both will have had sex evens out.

Teens who choose to protect themselves the first time they have sex correlates to young people who continue to practice safe sex.

Dr. Metee Comkornruecha, an adolescent medicine specialist at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, who was not involved in the study, said the increase in emergency contraception use among sexually active teens was likely due mainly to an increase in awareness and education about this form of contraception. It now costs anywhere between $35 and $50 to obtain.

The report showed little recent change in most other types of birth control used by teen girls who have had sex.

Anybody who wants to get those numbers to zero should probably consider devoting their time to something slightly less futile, like digging holes and then filling them back up immediately, over and over again, forever. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article.