Family Planning Perspectives articles from March 2002

Family Planning Perspectives archives from March 2002

In this issue.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Every year, thousands of American women and children suffer various forms of physical and sexual abuse, often perpetrated by family members or intimate partners. While this much is news to no one, the study of how such abuse affects women's...

IUD ifs, ands and buts. (FYI).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Virtually all obstetrician-gynecologists polled in 2000 agreed that the copper IUD is safe and effective, but few provide the method with great frequency. (1) While 80% of the 357 respondents had inserted IUDs in the last year, only 17% had...

You gotta have HAART. (FYI).(highly active antiretroviral therapy)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Before highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) became available for the treatment of HIV in 1996, women's likelihood of using antiretroviral therapy was influenced mainly by clinical and behavioral factors; use of HAART, however, is...

Catholic schools thinking outside the box. (FYI).(health benefits at Catholic Universities)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Although the Church hierarchy and many Catholic employers oppose legislation requiting that employee health benefits include coverage of contraceptives, a sizable proportion of Catholic universities have devised ways to offer such coverage to...

Thousands with HIV delay getting care. (FYI).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... An estimated 850,000-950,000 Americans are infected with HIV, including 180,000-280,000 who do not know it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (1) Of those who know that they have HIV infection, about one-third...

She who hesitates ... (FYI).(childbearing)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... When women delay childbearing until age 35 or older, their risk of having adverse outcomes increases, and those outcomes have an important impact at the population level, according to an analysis of birth data from Alberta, Canada. (1) Between...

The Irish have spoken on abortion. (FYI).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... By a margin of less than one percentage point-50.4% vs. 49.6%-Irish voters in March defeated a referendum proposal that would have tightened the country's already highly restrictive abortion law. (1) Under Irish law, a doctor may provide an...

Stay until it's time for you to go. (FYI).(hospitalization after childbirth)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... Since 1998, when a state law went into effect prohibiting insurance companies from limiting benefits for hospital postpartum care to the first 48 hours after delivery, Utah women have become more likely to remain hospitalized for at least that...

A new database offers a catalogue of professional and consumer materials about emergency contraception.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... * A new database offers a catalogue of professional and consumer materials about emergency contraception. Created by the American Society for Emergency Contraception and the Consortium for Emergency Contraception, the database includes...

In Their Own Right: Addressing the Sexual and Reproductive Health Needs of American Men.(Alan Guttmacher Institute)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... * In Their Own Right: Addressing the Sexual and Reproductive Health Needs of American Men, a new publication from The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), provides an overview of some fundamental patterns in men's sexual and reproductive lives, and...

Evidence is accumulating that nonoxynol-9 is ineffective as a vaginal microbicide.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... * Evidence is accumulating that nonoxynol-9 is ineffective as a vaginal microbicide. Investigators in Cameroon randomly assigned 1,251 women at high risk for sexually transmitted disease to use either condoms alone or condoms plus a nonoxynol-9...

Current or past physical or sexual abuse as a risk marker for sexually transmitted disease in pregnant women. (Articles).
March 1, 2002... The spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) has been called a "hidden epidemic" because these infections are becoming increasingly pervasive without receiving a corresponding increase in public attention. (1) An estimated 15 million new...

Is there a causal link between maltreatment and adolescent pregnancy? A literature review.
March 1, 2002... The relationship between violence and women's reproductive lives is a relatively new line of inquiry. In June 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention convened a national conference on the topic, with three main objectives: to...

HIV counseling and testing: women's experiences and the perceived role of testing as a prevention strategy.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... HIV counseling and testing was one of the earliest prevention strategies advocated, implemented and evaluated for at-risk populations, (1) and it remains a key component of the U.S. national HIV prevention strategy for women. Federally funded...

Risk of postpartum induced abortion in Finland: a register-based study.
March 1, 2002... Finland's abortion rate declined continuously from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s and increased slightly thereafter. This generally positive development concealed an important point, however: Among 25-29-year-old and 30-34-year-old women, the...

A model for involving youth in health planning: HIV prevention in Pennsylvania. (Special Report).
March 1, 2002... Despite major advances in the treatment of HIV and AIDS, continued transmission of HIV remains a major public health problem. Declines in AIDS incidence during the 1990s were not accompanied by comparable declines in the number of newly...

The checkered history and bright future of intrauterine contraception in the United States. (Viewpoint).
March 1, 2002... No method of contraception stirs quite as much heated discussion and debate as the IUD. The reasons the IUD has this distinction are simple: People's opinions have been shaped by a body of seemingly discrepant (and sometimes mythical) evidence,...

Reproductive options for HIV-serodiscordant couples. (Letters).
March 1, 2002... The study by James L. Chen and coauthors recently published in Family Planning Perspectives [Fertility desires and intentions of HIV-positive men and women, 2001, 33(4): 144-152 & 165] shows that many HIV-infected adults desire and expect to...

A perspective on the new perspectives. (Letters).
March 1, 2002... I was pleasantly stunned to see the publication of a very good qualitative study in the newly titled Perspectives. As a researcher who does both quantitative and qualitative work in adolescent sexuality, it is very heartening to see a very well...

Peer advocate services increase the odds that women with HIV will use condoms with main partners. (Digests).
March 1, 2002... Among HIV-positive women participating in an HIV prevention program, the odds of improving consistency of condom use with a main partner are more than twice as high for those who have access to peer advocates as for those who do not. (1)...

Whether Americans seek HIV testing is linked to race and perceived risk. (Digests).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Nearly one-third of American adults have ever been tested for HIV, excluding those who have been tested to qualify as blood donors. According to a review of HIV testing data from the 1999 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), (1) the...

Risk of bacterial vaginosis is elevated for women who douche, whether or not they have had symptoms. (Digests).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Demographic, behavioral and hormonal factors all appear to play a role in the occurrence of bacterial vaginosis, a condition caused by an overabundance of certain types of bacteria normally present in the vagina. (1) In a clinic-based study...

One-third of teenagers experience abuse within heterosexual relationships. (Digests).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Nearly one-third of U.S. adolescents who have recently been in a heterosexual relationship have been abused by their partners, according to a study of the health and health-related behaviors of a nationally representative sample of youth:...

Regimen that doubles the number of active pills per cycle reduces bleeding.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2002... An oral contraceptive regimen that extends the pill cycle by doubling the number of days on which women take hormonally active pills resulted in less bleeding than a traditional regimen among participants in a randomized, controlled trial in...

Risky behavior is growing more common among British men and women. (Digests).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... The reported prevalence of risky sexual behavior is rising in Great Britain, according to an analysis comparing results of the 2000 and 1990 rounds of the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal). (1) Both men and women in...

Parents are youngsters' top choice as source of health information. (Digests).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 1, 2002... Youth in grades 5-12 obtain information about health care from a wide variety of sources, and parents head the list; roughly three in five females and two in five males say that their mother is the first person they would consult about a...