If all else fails, there’s emergency contraception
When things go wrong, emergency contraception can keep a woman from getting pregnant.
One night I was listening to "Loveline," a show where people call in to get relationship and medical advice from Dr. Drew Pinsky and co-host Adam Corolla. Dr. Drew is a board-certified physician and an addiction medicine specialist. For the fourth time in an hour I heard Dr. Drew advise another young girl to go out and pick up some emergency contraception. I realized that I did not know anything about it, but that it must be pretty important if Dr. Drew felt the need to endorse it so often. So to find out more information about Preven, I thought that he would be the best to ask.
Dr. Drew said Preven can be purchased in a kit called "The Preven Emergency Contraception Kit." Aside from the pills, the kit also contains a pregnancy test. Dr. Drew informed me that, "The pregnancy test is just to improve awareness, so that if it comes out positive, the woman can receive appropriate prenatal care." If taken correctly, a woman has a 98% chance of not getting pregnant after unprotected sex. Statistically, Preven has a 70 percent effectiveness rating. The drug has no effect once the female is actually pregnant.
You might begin to wonder why you haven’t heard of Preven before or maybe why it’s not advertised as much as you would think. The problem is Preven’s incorrect association with the "morning after" pill, or RU-486. RU-486 can be used within the first seven weeks of pregnancy and causes a medically induced abortion. When this drug is taken, the egg has already been fertilized and, in some cases, planted on a wall of the uterus to begin growth. RU-486 causes the lining of the uterus to lose the sticky substance it uses to hold the egg in place. Thus, the egg slips and the pregnancy ends. Preven, on the other hand, suppresses ovulation. The egg never has a chance to be released or fertilized. Because it is impossible to tell if a woman is pregnant within the first 72 hours, anti-abortion groups have pretty much kept quiet about Preven, but many pharmacies use caution with distribution of the drug-Wal-Mart even refuses to carry it.
Preven is for emergencies only
What exactly is Preven? Preven is a form of emergency contraception to avoid pregnancy taken by a female after participating in unprotected sex. Unprotected sex means you and your partner did not use any birth control (see the above chart) to prevent the female from getting pregnant. Immediately after unprotected sex or up until 72 hours afterwards, the female should contact her doctor or a pregnancy clinic. From there she can be prescribed or given Preven or Plan B, another form of emergency contraception. Plan B basically performs the same tasks as Preven.
The pill is taken in two doses, one at least 24 hours after unprotected sex and another dose 12 hours later. The pill can be taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex, but Dr. Drew recommends it be taken 24 hours after, for best results.
Dr. Drew says that Preven is a combination of two hormones, levonorgestrel, a synthetic estrogen and gethinyl esradiol, another form of the hormone progestin. These two hormones are found in everyday birth control pills. The hormones work by suppressing another hormone known as luteinizing hormone. This hormone initiates the production of ova (female reproductive eggs). Without this hormone, Dr. Drew is almost positive that conception cannot occur.
In taking Preven, Dr. Drew said short-term side effects are nausea and vomiting. I think we all can agree that that is a much better deal than nine months of an unwanted pregnancy. Plan B causes less nausea and has higher doses of estrogen. There are no long-term side effects of taking either pill. He also said that if you do become pregnant after taking Preven, no harm is caused to the fetus. The pill suppresses ovulation anywhere from three days to a whole month. It depends on the woman. Dr. Drew also points out that Preven should only be used once a menstrual cycle. It should be used in emergency cases only and should not be used as a form of contraception.
More people need to speak up about Preven. I mean we have condoms and all kinds of crazy sex protection stuff even in supermarkets. Why this drug isn’t mass produced and distributed is beyond me. We have fire extinguishers in our homes but that doesn’t mean we are going to put out a candle with one. It’s only for emergencies. Preven is only for emergencies as well, but we don’t seem to find the need to keep those around the house in case of an emergency. As long as icons in our society such as Dr. Drew take a stand, then eventually there will be change.
