The availability of free contraceptives did not lead to women and girls being more sexually active, a study shows.
Published in Obstetrics and Gynecology, the study, entitled Change in Sexual Behavior With Provision of No-Cost Contraception, looked at the sexual habits and contraception use of 9,256 women at risk of unwanted pregnancies. Conducted from 2007 to 2011, the study's participants included women and girls aged 14 to 45, all of whom wanted to evade the possibility of pregnancy for at least one year.
When provided with birth control, free of charge, the women were then observed via telephone interviews at six month intervals over the course of a year. Of the participants, 7,751 responded to both surveys. The majority of these participants - more than 70 percent - had no change in their number of sexual partners, while 13 percent reported a decrease and 16 percent witnessed an increase. Of the girls that reported an increase, 80 percent began the study without any sexual partners, and by the end of the study had just one.
While frequency of intercourse increased over the 12-month period, rates of sexually transmitted infections did not. The findings counter the notion that freely available birth control leads to sexual promiscuity, while results from the same group (published last year) also demonstrate a drop in abortions and unplanned pregnancies.
Earlier findings also show that the majority of women and girls involved in the study chose to use longer-acting forms of birth control, such as intrauterine devices (IUDs) and hormonal implants, rather than contraceptive pills, with some 80 percent of the women tested opting for methods that largely eliminated the risk of human error, such as forgetting to take the Pill at the right time each day. Birth control pills are thought to fail up to 20 times more frequently than long-acting methods, though only 8.5 percent of women in the United States reported using IUDs and implants.
"It is not as if getting birth control opened the floodgates on sexual activity," said Gina Secura, PhD, MPH, study author and a researcher from the Washington University. "The latest findings should dispel the idea that the only thing standing between women and promiscuity is a fear of pregnancy."
