Doctors Not Telling Women About Plan B
Emergency Contraception: If Women Don't Ask, Doctors Don't Tell
June 19, 2008 -- Despite widespread misinformation about emergency contraception -- the so-called morning-after pill -- only 3% of women's doctors discuss Plan B with them.
The finding comes from data collected during face-to-face interviews with 7,643 women aged 15 to 44. The interviews were conducted in 2002, when emergency contraception was available only by prescription. Yet only 3% of women said their doctors discussed the issue with them.
Even when women saw a gynecologist for a Pap test or pelvic exam, only 4% received emergency-contraception counseling, find University of Pittsburgh researchers Megan L. Kavanaugh, DrPH, and Eleanor Bimla Schwarz, MD.
"A lot of women, and the American public in general, are very misinformed about what emergency contraception is, how to use it, and how to access it," Kavanaugh tells WebMD. "Yet counseling about emergency contraception really is missing from the clinical encounter, especially for young women, low-income women, and minority women."
There was also good news from the survey. The researchers found that 73% of women who had used emergency contraception had used it only once. The finding shows that women are truly using the "morning-after pill" for emergencies, and not -- as some had feared -- for routine birth control.
Women were more likely to have used emergency contraception if their doctors had told them about it. But the small number of doctors who have such conversations with their patients rankles David M. Plourd, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at San Diego's Naval Medical Center and clinical instructor at the University of California San Diego. Plourd was not involved in the Kavanaugh study.
"This is abysmal. It is embarrassing [that] the numbers are so low on women getting this crucial information from their gynecologists," Plourd tells WebMD. "I just don't know the downside of emergency contraception. The upside is preventing terminations and unintended pregnancies."
Plan B 'Special' on Birth Control Menu
Nearly all of the FDA's outside advisors, including a 2003 expert advisory panel, urged the agency to make the emergency contraceptive Plan B available over the counter. But the agency delayed making a decision until 2006 -- and then it ruled that Plan B could be sold without a prescription only to women aged 18 and older. Prescriptions are still needed by women aged 17 and younger.