Family Planning Perspectives articles from November 1998

Family Planning Perspectives archives from November 1998

Emergency Contraception Arrives.
November 1, 1998... The first emergency contraception product to gain approval from the Food and Drug Administration became available to U.S. women by prescription from physicians and other health care providers in the fall of 1998.[1] The Preven Emergency...

Window of Safety After Missed Pills.
November 1, 1998... Oral contraceptive users who miss the first three active pills of a cycle are not likely to ovulate, according to a study of 98 women using a variety of pill formulations.[1] After the women extended the pill-free interval from seven to 10...

Another Medical Abortion Method?
November 1, 1998... A regimen of tamoxifen and misoprostol may be another option for inducing abortion early in pregnancy, results of a clinical trial suggest.[1] For the study, 100 healthy women who were no more than eight weeks pregnant took an oral dose of 20...

Healthier Women in 2000?
November 1, 1998... Many measures of women's health have improved over the past decade, but most still have a substantial way to go to meet national objectives for the year 2000.[1] For example, despite declines in the proportion of pregnancies that are...

Squeaky Clean Semen.
November 1, 1998... A new process for "washing" HIV-1 from semen and using a sensitive test to confirm that the virus has been eliminated may allow infected men to father healthy children through artificial insemination without transmitting the virus to their...

Schools Mostly Get A for Effort.
November 1, 1998... The vast majority of schools offer health education courses in grades 6-12 that address sexual and reproductive health, according to information from 35 statewide surveys conducted in 1996).[1] In most states, roughly 90-100% (median, 97%) of...

Go to Jail, Have an STD Test.
November 1, 1998... Most local jails provide testing for common sexually transmitted diseases to arrestees who have symptoms of infection or who request testing, but few men and women entering these facilities are tested.[1] Of 115 city and county jails surveyed...

Some Teenagers Just Say No.
November 1, 1998... The prevalence of risky sexual behavior declined among high school students between 1991 and 1997, but not all subgroups registered improvements, according to an analysis of data from the latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey) In all, 48% of...

Pregnant Women Belly Up to the Bar.
November 1, 1998... The proportion of pregnant women who consumed any alcohol dropped from 23% to 10% between 1988 and 1992, then climbed back to 15% in 1995.[1] Similarly, the proportion who drank frequently (i.e., had at least seven drinks a week) or binged at...

It's Still No Reason to Smoke.
November 1, 1998... Black teenagers who smoke are only hall: as likely as their nonsmoking counterparts to become pregnant by age 18, according to a study of 1,042 low-income women having their first birth.[1] The women who had begun smoking as teenagers (7% of...

Understanding Changes in Sexual Activity Among Young Metropolitan Men: 1979- 1995.
November 1, 1998... Context: Changes in the sexual behavior of teenagers can have a significant impact on levels of adolescent pregnancy and transmission of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Understanding the role played by attitudes and educational efforts...

Abortion Incidence and Services in the United States, 1995-1996.
November 1, 1998... Context: In the 1980s, the number of abortion providers in the United States began to decline, and more recently, so has the number of abortions performed. Whether the decline in service providers, which was last documented in 1992, is...

Multiple Sexual Partners Among U.S. Adolescents And Young Adults.
November 1, 1998... Context: Because many teenagers and young adults fail to use condoms correctly and consistently, the number of sexual partners they have is an important risk factor for sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. Identifying factors that are...

Increased Condom Use Among Teenage Males, 1988-1995: The Role of Attitudes.
November 1, 1998... Context: Understanding whether and to what degree changes in young men's attitudes explain increases in condom use over time can be useful in developing more effective disease prevention strategies. Methods: Data from the 1988 and the 1995...

State Abortion Policy, Geographic Access to Abortion Providers and Changing Family Formation.
November 1, 1998... Context: One of the goals in cutting welfare payments and setting time limits on welfare receipt is the reduction of out-of-wedlock childbearing among poor women. Yet such changes may increase the demand for abortion at the same time that...

Using Pharmacies in Washington State To Expand Access to Emergency Contraception.
November 1, 1998... Throughout the country, pharmacists play an important role in health care. In addition to filling prescriptions, they often serve as sources of information about a variety of health issues, monitor a patient's overall use of medications and...

Children of Young Disadvantaged Women Are Unlikely To Receive Consistent Support from Their Fathers.
November 1, 1998... Fewer than one-fifth of children born to disadvantaged single teenagers receive monetary support from their fathers, and only about one-half of these noncustodial fathers spend time with their children, according to a survey of young women...

U.S. Teenagers' Birthrate And Pregnancy Rate Fall During the Mid-1990s.
November 1, 1998... The teenage birthrate in the United States dropped 12% from 1991 to 1996, with declines occurring in all states and among women of all ages, races and ethnicities, according to a report by the National Center for Health Statistics.[1] In...

Two-Fifths of Adolescent Health Specialists Would Provide Medical Abortions.
November 1, 1998... Virtually all physician members of the Society for Adolescent Medicine (SAM) believe that abortion should be available for adolescents under some circumstances, and 42% would prescribe medical abortion if the medications were approved for that...

Rates of Modern Method Use Are High Among Urban Russian Women, Who Typically Want Small Families.
November 1, 1998... Use of modern contraceptives among Russian women living in urban areas is widespread. Nonetheless, unplanned pregnancies are common, and the large majority of these pregnancies end in abortion. According to the 1996 Russia Women's Reproductive...

Strenuous or Sedentary Routine May Raise Preterm Birth Risk Among Poor.
November 1, 1998... Low-income women who engage in strenuous physical activities as part of their daily routines during pregnancy are at increased risk of delivering preterm, according to a study of clinic patients in Maryland.[1] For instance, women who climb...

Religion Plays a Growing Role in White Teenagers' Sexual Decision- Making.
November 1, 1998... White teenagers affiliated with conservative religious groups became less likely to initiate sexual activity through the 1980s, but religious affiliation did not influence sexually active young women's contraceptive decision-making, according...

Perinatal HIV Infection Is Reduced by Drug Therapy And Planned Cesarean.
November 1, 1998... Women infected with HIV-1 who take zidovudine during pregnancy and deliver by elective cesarean section have a significantly reduced likelihood of passing the virus on to their baby. In a multicenter, prospective cohort analysis,[1] women who...

The Risk of Hysterectomy Quadruples After Women Undergo Sterilization.
November 1, 1998... Women who are sterilized are more than four times as likely as nonsterilized women whose husbands undergo vasectomy to have a hysterectomy within five years after the procedure, according to a study conducted in nine cities across the United...