LARCs

Back in 2009, the Colorado Family Planning Initiative started providing free IUDs and other contraceptive implants to low-income women getting care at state Title X family planning clinics. As I described previously, funds from an anonymous foundation supported the purchase of the devices, as well as training for providers and staff and technical assistance – and Colorado teens’ use of these highly effective contraceptives jumped dramatically. The results, Sabrina Tavernise reports in the New York Times, have been startling: “The birthrate among teenagers across the state plunged by 40…

Last week, Vox’s German Lopez highlighted a recent study that demonstrates how improving access to the most effective contraceptives can slash the rates of unintended pregnancies and abortions among teens. After the Colorado Family Planning Initiative (CFPI) started providing free IUDs and implants to low-income women at family planning clinics, the teen birth rate and abortion rate dropped sharply. Lopez notes that the teen birth rate has been declining nationwide, but Colorado’s has dropped more quickly: “Between 2008 and 2012, the state went from the 29th lowest teen birth rate in the…

Last week, the American Academy of Pediatrics published a "Contraceptives for Adolescents" policy statement that advises pediatricians to consider long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) methods as first-line contraceptive choices for adolescents. LARC methods include contraceptive implants that can be inserted into the upper arm (which can remain in place for three years) and intrauterine devices (with different versions approved for three or five years). Unlike condoms or birth-control pills, which require repeated correct use, LARCs only need to be administered once. They have failure…