WEDNESDAY, Could 4, 2016 — Girls as young as 14 have actually boyfriends who’ve pressured them to come to be pregnant, sabotaged their birth control, or otherwise tried to manage their reproductive health, a brand-new study finds.
The study was small, surveying 77 sexually endured higher school girls in brand-new York City. Yet researchers said the outcomes prove to that “reproductive coercion” affects not just adult women, Yet girls, too.
And that means it’s a sort of abuse that doctors, schools and parents should be aware of, said lead researcher Dr. Jennifer Northridge, a postdoctoral fellow in adolescent medicine at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, in brand-new York City.
Reproductive coercion refers to a partner’s attempts to manage a woman’s reproductive choices: He could tension her to come to be pregnant or go on along with an unintended pregnancy, for instance, or interfere along with her birth manage so she comes to be pregnant versus her will.
In studies, 10 percent to twenty percent of adult women say they’ve been victims of reproductive coercion.
But the scope of the problem among teenage girls is unknown, according to Northridge.
As a very first step, she said, she and her colleagues surveyed girls that were most likely to be at increased risk: 14- to 17-year-olds seen at healthiness clinics in the Bronx, a borough of brand-new York City along with higher rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
And it turned out that reproductive coercion was surprisingly common — on par along with what’s been seen among young adult women, Northridge said.
Of the 77 girls surveyed, 16 percent said they’d ever had a boyfriend attempt to manage their reproductive healthiness — usually by telling them not to usage birth manage or by removing his condom throughout sex. In some cases, the girls said a partner had forced them to have actually sex free of a condom.
“This sort of abuse certainly happens in the context of a controlling relationship,” said Northridge, that presented the findings Could 3 at the Pediatric Academic Societies’ annual meeting, in Baltimore.
Often, she said, reproductive coercion appears to go hand-in-hand along with bodily abuse: Half of the girls in her study that reported reproductive coercion said they’d been hit, slapped or otherwise physically abused by a boyfriend. That compared along with 16 percent of various other girls.
They were additionally much more most likely to have actually had chlamydia, an STD that can easily trigger infertility if left untreated.
According to Northridge, the findings suggest that doctors that care for teenage girls need to be screening for reproductive coercion.
Dr. Elizabeth Miller, chief of adolescent and young adult medicine at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, agreed.
“healthiness care providers should be curious about the chance of reproductive coercion along with adolescent and young adult patients — especially as quickly as they have actually patients coming in for STD or pregnancy testing, STD treatment, or emergency contraception,” said Miller, that was not involved in the study.
It’s not clear exactly how Frequently that is happening, however.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists does recommend that ob-gyns screen women and teenage girls for reproductive coercion and various other types of intimate partner violence.
“So it is definitely on some healthiness care providers’ radar,” Miller said. But, she added, reproductive coercion is a relatively brand-new term, and no one knows exactly how Frequently pediatricians, for example, ask teenage patients regarding it.
Because the study focused on girls from one urban area, the prevalence of reproductive coercion Could not reflect what’s going on among teenage girls in general, according to Northridge.
Still, she said, the findings underscore the importance of teaching every one of children exactly how to have actually healthy and balanced relationships.
Many teenagers do not also understand “controlling behavior” as a form of abuse, Northridge pointed out. “We should concentrate on education, for the two girls and boys,” she said.
Miller agreed. “Parents, teachers, school staff, after-school programs, various other adults — we every one of have actually an obligation to talk to young individuals Frequently and consistently regarding healthy and balanced and harmful relationships.”
Findings presented at meetings are generally checked out as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
More information
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has actually much more on reproductive coercion.
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