By Ruben Obregon
New research, published by Child Trends in the journal Demography, confirms a long know fact that teens have a mixed track record with contraceptives. This research concludes that "Overall, teens do not use contraceptives consistently, which places them at risk of unintended pregnancy and STIs."
The research shows that across all relationships, 59% of teens always used contraceptives,17% sometimes used them, and 24% never used them.
This means that 41% of teens never or inconsistently used them, and research shows those with such a history were likely to continue in that pattern. This highlights the fact that overall, contraceptives can't solve the problems of adolescent pregnancy, child-bearing, abortion, and disease.
Despite this problem, contraceptive advocates keep pushing pills and condoms instead of pushing for a positive cultural change.
True, long term reductions in teen pregnancy, abortion, disease, and child-bearing are realized by decreases in the number of those who have ever engaged in sexual intercourse. Reliance on contraceptives - especially condoms - to solve these problems only sustains them in the long run.
Why do teens have such a poor track record with contraception? Child Trends' research identifies relationship types and characteristics of partners as factors in the consistency of contraceptive use.
The researchers found that communication about contraception among involved teens is associated with increased use, and that relationship type - casual or romantic - and partner differences - age, race/ethnicity, and social networks - may affect the ability to comfortably negotiate contraceptive use.
This may explain why some who consistently used contraception with one partner did not consistently use it, if at all, with another partner.
Not only the type, but the number of relationships is related to the consistency of contraceptive usage: 62% of teens who had just one sexual relationship used contraceptives consistently compared to 53% who had five or more such relationships.
The researchers suggest refining pregnancy prevention programs to account for relationship and partner differences. Unfortunately the authors do not even come close to suggesting that maybe contraceptive use among adolescents has been a bust, and that maybe abstinence is a better solution to the very problems they are trying to solve.
