CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The chief health officer in West Virginia is calling the results of a six-year Colorado birth control experiment “encouraging.”
Health officials there said Colorado’s teen pregnancy rate dropped by 40 percent while abortions fell 42 percent between 2009 and 2013 after teenagers and low-income women were offered free, long-term birth control like intra-uterine devices and hormonal implants.
Such methods, unlike other birth control options including pills or condoms, can prevent pregnancy for several years and require no action from a woman to work once in place.
Those long-term birth control options are already available in every West Virginia county, usually at no cost for people who cannot afford them, according to Dr. Rahul Gupta, who also serves as commissioner for the Bureau of Public Health within the state Department of Health and Human Resources.
“The idea is to make sure that, when these young women are having pregnancies, they are timed, wanted and done appropriately, and also that lowers the sexually transmitted disease rates. That’s also very important because we have some of the highest rates of that,” Gupta said.
The IUDs and hormonal implants alone do not protect against STDs.
In West Virginia, Gupta noted, the teen birth rate leveled off more than five years ago and there has been no spike in numbers since then.
Statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Adolescent Health for 2012 showed West Virginia was ranked 6th for teen births and 12th for teen pregnancies nationally. Stretching back to 1991, the same report indicated the state’s teen birth rate had declined by 24 percent.
“We’re always looking to try to look at other states and see what they are good in, if there are things out there, opportunities, that we can try to look and improve,” Gupta said on Tuesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
“I think there’s always opportunities to learn from others in the field.”
In Colorado, births declined during the long-term birth control experiment period for unmarried women under 25 who had not finished high school, another unplanned pregnancy risk group, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Nationally, teen pregnancy and birth rates are at historic lows, as reported by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.