University Daily Kansan / Fridav. Mav 1. 1987
B
Many believe myths about contraception,experts say
By IERRI NIEBAUM
Staff writer
Shortly after Christmas, a 21-year-old KU nursing student broke up with her boyfriend. She didn't want to have another relationship for a while, so she stopped taking birth control pills.
Several months later, "Sue" and her boyfriend made up. Sue, which is not the student's real name, used other forms of birth control for a while, and a few times, she didn't use any.
"I figured I was safe." she said.
As a nursing student, she had learned a lot about her menstrual cycle, so she thought she needed to know more.
Sue got pregnant. She is one of many women who get pregnant before they are pregnant.
Statistics from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment show that in 1985, 39,418 babies were born in Kansas. Of those, 72 were born to women ages 10-14; 4,420 were born to women ages 15-19; and 13,096 were born to women ages 20-24.
In that same year, 4,645 women had abortions in Kansas. Of those, 49 were ages 10-14; 1,304 were ages 15-19; and 1,638 were ages 20-24.
"It's the worst feeling. You just feel sick all the time." she said.
She knew what the symptoms were, but even though the first test she took showed she wasn't pregnant, she knew she probably was.
"You just can't prepare yourself enough to have the nurse say it's positive," she said.
Her second pregnancy test was positive. Sue said she was relieved to finally know for sure.
"I cried because, for the first time I thought. I'm going to have to make a really major decision for the first time," she said.
put the baby and get married, have the baby and put it for adoption, or have an abortion.
up for adoption, or have an abortion
She thought about getting married
"I want to be ready to be married," she said. "If it didn't work out, I would be alone with a baby and that scared me."
She thought about putting the baby up for adoption.
"If I carried a baby for nine months, I couldn't give it up," she said.
She thought about her baby a lot, especially when she felt sick. She said it didn't hurt as much as she imagined.
"When I gagged, I'd say, 'Baby, give me a break. That's what made it hardest — when I started talking to it," she said.
Sue needed somebody to talk to. She said that talking to her boyfriend about her options was difficult because he was afraid she might decide to have the baby, and he wasn't ready to be a father.
She talked to her parents, which she said was frustrating because her father tried to blame the pregnancy on Sue's boyfriend.
"I wish he would understand that it wasn't just Bob (not his real name)," she said. "My dad wants me to be his little girl."
While she was thinking and talking about her options, she was still going to work and to school at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
"I went to class, but I didn't want to because I felt so sick. I gagged all the way through class," she said. "I don't know how some women do it. I really don't. It's really miserable."
'A lot of people don't accept themselves as sexual human beings, so they don't anticipate being sexual.'
professor of social welfare
— Dennis Dailey
She thought about her options and she thought about her future. Without any money, one year short of graduation, she could not see herself having a child.
"I love babies," she said. "But then I started being rational about it. . . . Deep inside, I always knew that I would get an abortion."
Sue had an abortion at a Kansas City area clinic about three weeks after she found out she was pregnant. She said the operation was painful and emotionally draining.
"I hurt and my baby was gone," she said.
But she thinks she made the right decision.
"you have to be in the situation before you can answer would do or how you would react," she said.
Ignoring consequences
Sue is not alone.
For about every nine babies born in Kansas in 1985, one was aborted.
Researchers and medical professionals give several reasons that so many unwanted babies are conceived, ignorance and misinformation are possible reasons. But just understanding sex and birth control is not enough, researchers say.
"The only way contraception use is effective is if you anticipate using it," said Dennis Dailey, professor of social welfare, who teaches a sex education class at KU.
"A lot of people don't accept themselves as sexual human beings, so they don't anticipate being sexual," he said.
Dailey said he knew many students who knew about contraceptive methods, knew how to use them and knew the consequences of not using them. But they still did not have contraception when they needed it because they didn't want to admit that they might have sex. They didn't plan ahead.
He said men were more willing to accept being sexually active than women because men generally left it up to women to deal with the consequences.
"Pregnancy shouldn't be unwanted," Dailie said. "It takes the fun out of being close."
"I think there is still a really strong attitude in our society that contraception is women's work." he said.
Dailey said an unwanted pregnancy could have positive and negative consequences for both men and women. It can interrupt growing-up time and education in both and can damage a woman's self-esteem. It can make the man to feel guilt and shame. Dailey said.
"I think we think that if we tell the horror stories, it will keep young people out of each other's pants," he said.
But he also said that many couples were able to cope with the pregnancy and learned from their experience.
Dailey said he had researched many studies that indicated that about 50 percent of 17-year-olds had engaged in sex at least once. Of those, he estimated that about 30 percent used birth control the first time and every time thereafter.
But those who are not using birth control may be risking pregnancy without realizing it. Dailey said that both high school and college students still believed many myths about birth control and pregnancy. Among them:
A woman can't get pregnant the first time she has sex.
- The safest time to have sex is during a woman's period.
A woman can't get pregnant if the man ejaculates outside of her vagina.
A woman can't get pregnant if she doesn't have an orgasm.
Barbara Mikkelson, director of nurses for the Lawrence Douglas County Health Department, said many women thought it couldn't happen to them.
"Some people just don't think you can get pregnant the first time," she said.
Betty Armstrong, public relations coordinator for Comprehensive Health Associates, an abortion clinic in Overland Park, said, "It's just amazing how much ignorance there still is about how things work. You still have people believing that condoms break all the time, so why use them."
But Armstrong said that some people who understood birth control methods still did not use them. She said some women didn't want to take birth control pills because they thought the pills would make them promiscuous. "A woman has birth control, she knows it," Armstrong said. "She doesn't want to let herself into a situation where she could use it. Armstrong said."
Armstrong said that abstinence was a perfectly acceptable form of birth control but that even people who planned to abstain should have birth control on hand. She said parents and educators who taught only abstinence shielded their children from information they needed
"Their kids may or may not do what they say, so they better teach something else," she said.
Wanda Haney is director of Birthright of Lawrence Inc., 204 W. 13th St. Birthright is an international agency that was started in Canada 20 years ago as an agency to counsel women who are pregnant and don't want to be.
Haney said, "People need more information about the consequences of sex."
'Some people just don't think you can get pregnant the first time.'
Lawrence Douglas County Health
Barbara Mikkelson director of nurses ouglas County Health
Department
She said she thought women were pressured by society and the media to become sexually active before they were ready.
"A lot of women we see are not really comfortable about being sexually active,"
She said that although some women were uncomfortable having sex, they had it anyway, without planning for it, and had abortions if they got pregnant.
"We believe, as an organization, that abortion is not the best option," Haney said.
She said the organization provided prenatal counseling for women who decided to keep their babies and would provide names of the women who put their babies up for adoption.
Armstrong said that couples thought that because they have been having sex without getting pregnant, they must be safe.
Students should learn how to use birth control at places like Comprehensive Health or Planned Parenthood because both places have experts trained to teach birth control methods, she said.
"I know years ago I got a diaphragm and wasn't told anything about it," she said.
She ran out of the spermicidal jelly that came with the diaphragm and didn't replace it. She was scared and had to cry.
"I got a kid from that," she said, laughing. Luckily, she could afford to have a child at that time.
Many students who get pregnant can't afford it, and experts say they need to learn about sex and birth control before they reach college age.
The State Board of Education is considering recommendations that would require
Learning to plan ahead
public schools to provide some form of comprehensive sex education program in Kansas primary and secondary schools by September 1988.
The board also is considering recommendations that would advise the state to set guidelines for the courses, encourage districts to provide programs for parents and require that teachers, school administrators and education students be trained in sex education.
Sharon Freden, assistant commissioner of the education services division of the state Department of Education, said she expected the board to take some action on the recommendations in May when it also would consider making changes in its current policy guidelines.
The "Guidelines for Sex Education in Public Schools of Kansas," adopted in June 1970, contains language that discourages schools from teaching about specific methods of contraception.
Lynn Heller, coordinator of health education at Watkins Hospital, said students often did not learn about specific methods of contraception before they reached college age.
"There are a lot of misconceptions." she said.
For instance, she said students had told her they thought a woman could only become pregnant for about one day a month because most women's ova live for about 24 hours, although some women's ova live up to twice that long. But a sperm can live for up to 72 hours. So, a woman can be pregnant up to three days before and three days after the time when her ovum is fertile.
Heller gives sex education programs at residence halls and for groups that request them. She teaches birth control methods for women in the community, and women how to calculate their ovulation cycles.
Students of all ages can also learn about birth control at the Lawrence Douglas County Health Center. Both Watkins Hospital and the Health Center distribute low-cost birth control, give counseling about available forms of contraception and perform pregnancy tests.
Sue doesn't blame anyone for what happened to her, but she wishes it hadn't happened.
Women who become pregnant are counseled about their options, and both Watkins and the Health Center provide patients with names of adoption agencies and abortion clinics. They also provide health care for the mother and child if she decides to keep the baby.
"I always said I'd allow myself one mistake and that's all," she said. "Nobody should mess up more than once. They just shouldn't."
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