Southern Arizona Online, a publication of the Tucson Citizen

Education seen as key to curtail pregnancies

Of all pregnancies in the United States, one-third are unplanned.
And when alcohol is involved, people are even more careless with contraception, said Patti Caldwell, vice president of Planned Parenthood of Southern Arizona.
Caldwell said education must be provided to all women and girls to reduce the number of babies damaged prenatally by alcohol.
"If women are sexually active or if there is any chance they are going to be sexually active, it's very important for them to think about whether a pregnancy would be OK," Caldwell said.
"If the answer is 'no,' it's important they select a birth control method that will work for them."
Newer options in birth control can help a woman find one which best fits her lifestyle, Caldwell said.
Norplant, for example, can be used by women who know they do not want a pregnancy for five years. The device is surgically implanted in a woman's arm. Some women report adverse side effects.
Depo-Provera, a shot given every three months, can be used by a woman who may have difficulty remembering to take a pill every day.
But she said education is the key for all women, and especially young ones, to ensure responsibility for reproduction.
"Young people need three things," she said.
"They need factual, honest information about birth control methods and how one gets pregnant and how to prevent pregnancy."
Secondly, she said, girls must be given an opportunity to learn the skills to "put their own decision about when and whether to have sex into practice." She said at home, school and within their religious institutions, girls should be allowed to practice telling boys, "No."
And when they are ready to have sex, they should have been allowed to practice negotiating for the use of birth control, Caldwell said.
Young women need access to medical care and birth control as well, she said.
But what about older women, the ones who are more likely to give birth to babies with fetal alcohol syndrome?
For alcoholics who have baby after baby damaged by alcohol, the answers are not simple, she said.
"One of the things that we continue to not do very well is make sure everyone has access to birth control services, including tubal ligation and vasectomy," she said.
She said some women are discouraged, or even not allowed, to have a tubal ligation at the time of delivery, even if that is what they wish.
She said Mercy Care, a health care plan for the poor offered through Carondelet Health Network, will not perform tubal ligations, for religious reasons.
For the women in this program, getting sterilized is very difficult, she said.
While simply offering sterilization may not prevent some alcoholics from producing children with FAS, "it can help some people make a decision on whether they want to bear more children," Caldwell said.

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