Almost half of the people who obtained emergency contraception pills to prevent pregnancies in Carroll County during the past three years are women and girls younger than 19.
And in 2003, about 50 percent of the patients who sought the “morning-after pill” from the county family planning clinic were teenagers, according to a report on teen trends released Tuesday.
“I was surprised by the numbers,” said Cindy Marucci-Bosley, women’s health manager for the Carroll County Family Planning Clinic in the Carroll County Health Department in Westminster.
Also known as Plan B, this progestin pill is taken within five days after unprotected sex to prevent ovulation and should not be confused with the abortion pill, she said.
The University of Maryland Health Center does not recommend emergency contraceptive pills as an ongoing method of birth control.
But some of the girls who take the morning-after pill are “serial users who take it seven, eight, nine, 10 different times,” Marucci-Bosley said, a method she does not advocate. She attributed young adults? feelings of “invincibility” and a tendency to not start contraception until six months after first having sex as two reasons why teens seek the morning-after pill.
A clinician at the health department since 1984, she said she has noticed more parents allowing “sleepovers,” with many of the girls reporting their times of intercourse at 2, 3 and 4 in the morning.
The Partnership for a Healthier Carroll County, a nonprofit devoted to improving residents? health, compiled the report and distributed it at the county health department?s 10th Annual Risky Business Prevention Conference on Tuesday.
Ages of emergency contraception users
» 2003: 203 total, 101 under 19
» 2004: 248 total, 101 under 19
» 2005: 280 total, 104 under 19
Source: Carroll County Health Department Family Planning Clinic
