Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health articles from September 2006

Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health archives from September 2006

Russia owns up to HIV.(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... As Russia faces the prospect of an HIV pandemic, the issue of HIV and AIDS has rapidly "gone from near obscurity to the top of the political agenda" there. (1) In April, President Vladimir Putin allocated $109 million to a national project...

When can you be sued for spreading HIV?(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... The California Supreme Court ruled in July that people who transmit HIV to a sexual partner can be sued by the partner-even if they did not actually know that they were infected but there was "sufficient information" to infer as much. (1)...

What you never saw on gidget.(dating surveys)(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Some youngsters learn too early that dating isn't all about carefree time at the beach, the movies or the mall. Nine percent of high school students participating in the 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Survey said that within the last year, a...

Newborns' hospital stays and the law.(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... The average hospital stay of newborns in California increased significantly after federal and state legislation aimed at reducing the incidence of early discharge went into effect, but some groups of infants appear to have benefited more than...

A shot in the arm for all pregnant women?(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Universal flu vaccination for pregnant women, a strategy that has been recommended by the federal government since 2004, would cost less than treating women who develop the flu during pregnancy, when the risks of complications and...

Your tax dollars at work.(abortion)(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Federally funded "pregnancy resource centers" provide false and misleading information that may frighten women and discourage them from obtaining abortions, according to a report by Democratic staff of the House Government Reform Committee. (1)...

Grim news on preterm births.(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Infants born preterm-before 37 weeks' gestation-accounted for 13% of all U.S. births in 2005, according to the Institute of Medicine (IOM). (1) That proportion represents a 30% increase since 1981, and it differs considerably by race and...

If women had their druthers.(menstruation)(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... Even for many women who have no menstrual-related health problems, the special monthly visitor is a nuisance. Three-quarters of women interviewed at an Italian gynecology clinic said that their periods interfered with sex, half said that it...

Aids testing plan stirs controversy.(Brief article)
September 1, 2006... With one-quarter of HIV-positive Americans unaware of their infection status, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is drafting guidelines recommending that physicians routinely test 13-64-year-olds, regardless of their risk...

Estimates of pregnancies averted through California's family planning waiver program in 2002.
September 1, 2006... California's family planning program, Family PACT (Planning, Access, Care and Treatment), was launched in 1997 * and grew rapidly, serving 750,000 clients during its first year of operation and more than 1.5 million in 2003. It replaced a...

Understanding sex partner selection from the perspective of inner-city black adolescents.
September 1, 2006... Persistently high rates of HIV and other STDs have a profound impact on the health of adolescent populations in the United States. (1) Some populations-black youth (2) and inner-city residents, (3) for example-disproportionately suffer the...

Provision of contraceptive and related services by publicly funded family planning clinics, 2003.
September 1, 2006... Publicly funded family planning clinics provide access to affordable contraceptives and related preventive health care for millions of American women each year. In 2001, 6.7 million women received contraceptive services from a publicly funded...

Promoting female condom use to heterosexual couples: findings from a randomized clinical trial.
September 1, 2006... Important gender-based innovations in the prevention of HIV and other STDs include the introduction of the female condom and promoting its use in interventions that target couples. (1) In the face of soaring heterosexually acquired HIV...

Do U.S. family planning clinics encourage parent-child communication? Findings from an exploratory survey.
September 1, 2006... Generally speaking, adolescents have the legal right to consent to contraceptive and STD services. All states allow minors (adolescents younger than 18) to consent to STD services, and these state laws implicitly guarantee confidentiality....

Unprotected sex among youth living with HIV before and after the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy.
September 1, 2006... Unprotected sex with an HIV-positive individual is the primary vector of HIV infection in the United States. (1) And since the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in 1996, there have been growing concerns about unprotected...

Many teenagers who say they have taken a virginity pledge retract that statement after having intercourse.
September 1, 2006... Teenagers' responses to questions about their sexual intentions and behavior often are inconsistent over time, possibly because of changes in young people's social circumstances and identities, according to an analysis of data collected in two...

Early pregnancy failure: misoprostol may be good alternative to surgery.
September 1, 2006... Pregnancies that fail in the first trimester-ones that end in embryonic or fetal death or in incomplete spontaneous abortion, ones whose inevitable outcome is spontaneous abortion and ones characterized by the absence of an embryo in the...

Women, but not men, living with a same-sex partner are disadvantaged with regard to health care access.
September 1, 2006... Analyses of data from a large, nationally representative sample of U.S. adults confirms findings from smaller-scale studies suggesting that lesbians are disadvantaged in terms of health care access; gay men do not appear to be similarly...

Improving work situations during pregnancy may help improve outcome.
September 1, 2006... Women whose jobs expose them to physically difficult and psychologically stressful conditions are at increased risk of having an infant who is small for gestational age, and the risk increases with the number of such conditions if they remain...

Frequency of HIV testing is suboptimal among some men who are at high risk.(DIGESTS)
September 1, 2006... Current guidelines recommend that men who have sex with men be tested annually for HIV, and results of a survey conducted among such men in six U.S. cities suggest how important that recommendation may be. (1) In a subsample of participants who...

Both parents' immigration status is associated with the likelihood that an infant is breast-fed.
September 1, 2006... Immigrant women participating in a multisite, longitudinal study were more likely than their U.S.-born counterparts to breast-feed, but the longer foreign-born women lived in the United States, the less likely they were to breast-feed. (1)...

Sex in the media: links to behavior differ between white and black teenagers.(DIGESTS)
September 1, 2006... The influence of exposure to media with sexual content on teenagers' sexual activity differs for white and black youth, according to results of a longitudinal study of middle school students in North Carolina. (1) In analyses controlling for...

Women aged 40 and older have greatest likelihood of stillbirth; teenagers also have an elevated risk.(DIGEST)
September 1, 2006... Teenagers and women aged 35 or older are at significantly higher risk of having a stillbirth than are women in their 20s and early 30s, and the association remains even once a large number of known risk factors for stillbirth are taken into...

Early prenatal care does not close racial gaps in perinatal mortality.(DIGESTS)
September 1, 2006... Even when they obtain early prenatal care, women who belong to racial and ethnic minority groups are more likely than white women to experience perinatal mortality--the loss of a fetus or the death of an infant within four weeks after birth. In...