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THE “BEST-KEPT SECRET”
IN WOMEN’S HEALTH Washington, DC – To help reduce the three million unintended pregnancies each year in the U.S., a coalition of medical groups and women’s health advocates today announced a campaign to put emergency contraception into women’s hands before they need it. Available only by prescription, emergency contraception — sometimes called the “morning-after pill”— offers women a second chance to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex or birth control failure, if taken within 72 hours. The “Back Up Your Birth Control” campaign encourages women to get a dose from their health care provider now to have on hand, rather than wait until a crisis. “Most American women spend up to twenty years of their lives trying to prevent pregnancy,” said Kirsten Moore, President of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, which is coordinating the campaign. “Given the high rate of unintended pregnancy in this country, a back-up birth control plan should be welcome news. We want women to know that emergency contraception is safe, available, and that they can stow it away in their medicine cabinets should they ever need it.” If widely used, emergency contraception (EC) has the potential to prevent roughly half of the unintended pregnancies in the U.S. each year – many of which happen among women who are already using a regular birth control method. Emergency contraceptive pills reduce the risk of pregnancy by up to 89 percent. The earlier they are taken after unprotected sex, the better the chances that they will do so. EC causes no serious side effects, making it a safe and effective “back-up plan” for women who do not want to become pregnant. However, use of this “back-up” birth control method in the U.S. has been limited. Only 2 percent of women ages 18-44 report ever using emergency contraceptive pills, according to a 2000 national survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation – even though the FDA has approved two EC products for sale here since 1998. Health care providers can also offer EC by prescribing a shorter, higher course of certain regular birth control pills – a practice that has been accepted for nearly three decades. Women report that they often do not ask for emergency contraception due to a lack of awareness, embarrassment, or the belief that they are not at risk. At the same time, few physicians routinely discuss this method as part of their regular birth control counseling. Yet, studies indicate that women are more likely to use emergency contraception if they already have it on hand – or have at least gotten a prescription in advance. Women who are prepared are not more likely to use this method repeatedly, or to change how they use their regular birth control method. Thus, the goal of the “Back Up Your Birth Control” campaign is to get a dose of emergency contraception into the medicine cabinet of every woman of reproductive age. The most commonly prescribed emergency contraceptive methods are high dosages of ordinary birth control pills. The FDA approved the first emergency contraceptive product, Preven, in September 1998; it contains a combination of the hormones estrogen and progestin. The second EC product, Plan B, was approved in July 1999; it is a progestin-only method. Emergency contraceptive pills prevent pregnancy the same way that daily birth control pills do: by delaying or preventing release of the egg (ovulation), inhibiting fertilization, or preventing implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus. They are not to be confused with Mifeprex (also referred to as RU-486 or mifepristone). Emergency contraception prevents pregnancy; it does not terminate an established pregnancy or harm a developing fetus. In fact, emergency contraception will not work if a woman is already pregnant. More information on EC and the campaign is available at www.backupyourbirthcontrol.org - 33 - |