On the heels of world contraception day and renewed efforts to improve family planning services globally, new recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics highlight the importance of youth-friendly services and policies. Until now, pediatricians first recommended condoms or oral contraception as the best options for pregnancy prevention despite their relatively high failure rate compared to other methods. While the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have recommended long acting reversible contraception (LARC) methods, including IUDs and implants, since 2007, pediatricians have been reluctant to follow suit. This has been at least in part due to lack of knowledge and misconceptions among pediatricians and their patients regarding the safety of LARCs for youth. A study of a recent intervention in Colorado found that when LARCs are offered to adolescents, their uptake increases and pregnancy rates decline, suggesting they are an effective and appropriate method for youth.
Given that pediatricians are considered a source for information on sexual and reproductive health for adolescents, it is particularly important they provide simple, objective and salient information and manage their own biases to best serve their patients. The new recommendations help address both issues and also highlight the integration of family planning into other services frequently used by adolescents, which may applicable to those currently designing youth-friendly family planning and reproductive health services.
BERI 