Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health articles from May 2004

Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health archives from May 2004

Pill-stroke link: case not closed.(FYI)
May 1, 2004... Although 30 years of research have pointed to a link between birth control pill use and the risk of stroke, the association is "tenuous at best and perhaps nonexistent," according to a meta-analysis including 36 studies. (1) Overall, the pooled...

World population fun facts.(FYI)
May 1, 2004... In June 1999, the world population reached six billion-3.5 times its size at the beginning of the 20th century and twice its size in 1960-according to a report from the Census Bureau. (1) The climb from five billion to six billion took a mere...

Program works; booster doesn't.(FYI)
May 1, 2004... Four years after students in 10 North Carolina public schools participated in a program to reduce dating violence, they were significantly less likely than their peers who had not received the intervention to report involvement in such...

Does true love wait?(FYI)
May 1, 2004... Fourteen percent of participants in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health who had taken a virginity pledge had a nonmarital birth; the proportion was twice as high among their counterparts who had not taken a pledge. (1) In an...

What is normal gestation?(FYI)
May 1, 2004... Black and Asian women who gave birth in a London health region in 1988-1998 delivered earlier than their white counterparts, but their infants appeared to be further along in development, according to an analysis of data from a large maternity...

It's too darn bright.(FYI)
May 1, 2004... Three centuries of birth records in the southern part of the Netherlands indicate that conceptions (and, one may infer, heterosexual intercourse) occur most often in the spring; but a study of nearly a million Pap smears taken between 1983 and...

Folic acid works.(FYI)
May 1, 2004... The fortification of cereal grain products with folic acid, which the U.S. government has required since 1998 as a measure to prevent neural tube defects, appears to be having some impact. (1) An analysis of data from a population-based...

The STDs nobody knows.(FYI)(Sexually transmitted diseases)
May 1, 2004... More than 170,000 Americans contract hepatitis A or B infection each year, but many people know little about these infections. (1) One-quarter of hepatitis A infections are attributable to household or sexual contact, and half of hepatitis B...

Did the rabbit test die?(FYI)
May 1, 2004... Advertising for home pregnancy tests claims that they are at least 99% accurate when used on the first day of a missed period, but an evaluation of 18 brands yielded considerably worse results. (1) Following the instructions in the package...

Teenage pregnancy and associated risk behaviors among sexually abused adolescents.
May 1, 2004... Since the early 1990s, rates of adolescent sexual initiation and pregnancy in the United States have declined, (1) while teenagers' contraceptive use has increased. (2) Nevertheless, each year in the United States more than one million...

"Throwing the dice": pregnancy decision-making among HIV-positive women in four U.S. cities.
May 1, 2004... Although AIDS-related deaths among U.S. women have decreased, the number of HIV-positive women has increased, and more than half of infections are among black, non-Hispanic women. Given that the majority of HIV-positive women are of...

The acceptability of the female and male condom: a randomized crossover trial.
May 1, 2004... Correct and consistent use of male latex condoms reduces the risk of pregnancy, HIV infection and some other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). (1) Nevertheless, many men refuse to use them, perhaps because they do not find them acceptable...

The future of the female condom.(Viewpoints)
May 1, 2004... More than 10 years have elapsed since the female condom became widely available, and it remains the only female-initiated means of preventing both pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV infection. The female condom...

Covert use of topical microbicides: implications for acceptability and use.
May 1, 2004... Pervasive and persistent power inequities in sexual relationships lead many women in the world to develop strategies to protect their reproductive health and hide these strategies from their male partners. The prevention of unwanted pregnancy...

Recent childbirth or acquisition of new partner boosts sexually transmitted disease risk in female teenagers.(Digests)
May 1, 2004... Female adolescents who have a sexually transmitted disease (STD) are more likely to have recently acquired a new sex partner than their sexually active peers who do not have an STD, according to a longitudinal study of teenagers receiving care...

For second-trimester abortion, women given misoprostol vaginally report the greatest satisfaction.(Digests)
May 1, 2004... When a fetal anomaly causes a woman to seek a second-trimester abortion, oral administration of misoprostol appears to be the least effective method for terminating the pregnancy, and vaginal misoprostol administration the most acceptable to...

Poor outcome in first pregnancy may predict stillbirth in second one.(Digests)
May 1, 2004... The odds that a second pregnancy will end in stillbirth are twice as high among women whose first pregnancy ends in the term delivery of an infant who is small for gestational age as among those whose first infant is born at term and is not...

Teenagers given advance emergency contraception still use pill and condoms.(Digests)
May 1, 2004... Providing adolescents with advance doses of emergency contraception neither increases their likelihood of having unprotected sex nor negatively affects their use of condoms or hormonal contraceptives, according to a longitudinal study of...

Postpartum sexual problems are similar for depressed and nondepressed women, but prevalence differs.(Digests)
May 1, 2004... Within six months after giving birth at a London hospital, nine in 10 women answering survey questions about their sexual and mental health had resumed intercourse, but two-thirds of those who had said that sex was less frequent and four in 10...

For teenage women, having had multiple recent partners is linked to a cluster of negative behaviors.(Digests)
May 1, 2004... Thirteen percent of sexually experienced female high school students have had two or more sexual partners in the past three months, according to an analysis of data from a nationally representative survey. (1) Having had multiple partners in...