NEW YORK |
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Just over 10 percent of women in a infantry pronounced in 2008 they’d had an unintended pregnancy in a final year – a figure significantly aloft than rates in a ubiquitous public, according to a new study.
The commentary come amid news that a Pentagon will lift a anathema on women in front-line fight jobs starting in 2016.
“It does really have implications for couple readiness, ability to muster (and) infantry in fight missions if they are potentially during high risk for unintended pregnancy and profound women can’t be deployed,†pronounced Dr. Vinita Goyal, who has complicated unintended pregnancy in womanlike veterans during Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
Access to birth control can be a problem for infantry deployed for prolonged durations of time – and if women do turn pregnant, termination is legally limited on U.S. infantry bases. Women who get profound while abroad contingency be evacuated.
Dr. Daniel Grossman from a University of California, San Francisco, who worked on a study, called a rates of unintended pregnancy “really shocking.â€
“Women in a infantry positively merit some-more than that. This needs to be addressed opposite all branches of a military,†he said.
The Pentagon could not yield a criticism by deadline.
Grossman’s formula are formed on surveys of some-more than 7,000 active-duty women, between 18 and 44 years old, conducted in 2008, a final such accessible survey. About 800 of a women pronounced they’d had an unintended pregnancy in a prior year – including a identical suit of deployed and non-deployed women.
In total, about 900 women had been incompetent to muster in a past year due to a pregnancy, either conscious or unintended, according to commentary published in February’s Obstetrics Gynecology.
The rate of unintended pregnancy – 105 for each 1,000 women – was a tiny boost over a rate in 2005 of 97 per 1,000 servicewomen. That figure is also 50 percent aloft than rates of unintended pregnancy among likewise aged women a general, open public.
“Clearly unintended pregnancy is an critical open health problem for everyone. It seems quite critical for a infantry race since apparently it can interrupt a woman’s career,†Grossman said.
He pronounced difficulty and regard over infantry policies on passionate activity might impact women’s entrance to contraception.
Consensual sex among members of a same arrange is legal. But women might be fearful to ask for condoms, for example, for fear people will consider they are violating policy, Goyal, who wasn’t concerned in a new research, told Reuters Health.
Sexual attack in a infantry might be another writer to high rates of unintended pregnancy, a researchers noted.
“There are studies display anywhere between 20 and 40 percent of servicewomen (experience) rape or attempted rape during their infantry career, and a immeasurable infancy don’t news it,†Grossman, who is also a clamp boss for investigate during Ibis Reproductive Health, told Reuters Health.
According to information from a Department of Defense, there were between dual and 3 passionate assaults for each 1,000 active avocation soldiers, group and women, reported in 2011.
Earlier this month, laws were nice to concede victims of rape or incest to get abortions during infantry bases, though differently – solely when a mother’s life is in risk – termination on bases is illegal.
Grossman pronounced contraception should be discussed with infantry women before they muster – as is now process in a Navy – and those women should during slightest be authorised to compensate out of slot for termination while on U.S. bases.
“These women should have entrance to a same services that they could entrance if they were here in a U.S.,†he said.
SOURCE: bit.ly/V82WWC Obstetrics Gynecology, Feb 2013.
