A new study has found that one in nine young women use the morning after pill following a sexual encounter, in a report that’s the first to focus on the uses of emergency contraception since it was approved more than fifteen years ago. The results show that of women aged between 15 and 44, eleven percent had used the contraceptive device. Those numbers are up by four percent since 2002, when the pill had only been on the market a short while and users required a prescription to be able to take the drug.
The popularity of the morning after pill is thought to be down to the fact that it is easy to buy and because of the media coverage which has showcased the controversial efforts by the health sector to raise the age for over the counter sales. If you are under 17, you still require a prescription from your GP in order to get the pill from a pharmacy. Over half of the women report that they used the pill because they’d had unprotected sex. The rest said that they were worried that the condom had split or that their birth control methods had not worked effectively.
The morning after pill works like a birth control pill, but is a higher dose. This helps to prevent ovulation and needs to be taken within a few days of the unprotected sex in order to work. The study discovered that women in their early twenties were more likely to use the pill, with one in four having used it in the past. Those who’ve never been married were also more likely, with one in five taking the drug compared to one in twenty married women. Safe sexual health practices are important to reduce the risk of STDs – you should be checked at a clinic if you’ve had unprotected sex in order to rule this out.
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