BMJ 1995;311:806-807 (23 September)

Letters

Contraceptive failure may be a major factor in teenage pregnancy

EDITOR,--In their study of 147 teenagers with unplanned pregnancies V A H Pearson and colleagues found that 80% claimed to have been using contraception at conception.1 The authors argue that teenagers need to lower their threshold for use of emergency contraception when there is a risk of pregnancy.

It should be a matter of concern that such a high proportion of unplanned pregnancies are due to contraceptive failure (which comprises technical failure and misuse of contraception). To gain an insight into the effectiveness of contraception in preventing teenage pregnancies at a population level I have examined the relation between trends in the use of condoms among teenagers and trends in teenage conception rates during 1975-91. I used data from the national survey of sexual behaviour2 to estimate the proportion of male teenagers who used condoms at first sexual intercourse during the period. The percentage who report having used condoms at . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Pregnant teenagers' knowledge and use of emergency contraception
V A H Pearson, M R Owen, D R Phillips, D J Pereira Gray, and M N Marshall
BMJ 1995 310: 1644. [Full Text]

Access all current jobs at BMJ Group
Whats new online at Student BMJ
Listen to the latest BMJ Interview