To think 13 is too young to go on the pill

[toni76]

A report says girls as young as 13 should get the pill without a prescription. I just think 13 is sooo young (have two little girls). AIBU to think there must be a better way to stop 13 year olds getting pregnant?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17847069

I don't think that you can relate single experiences to an entire generation of teenage girls.

Molly im just trying to protect my DD and at 13 she doesnt go out during the week and at weekends she is with me unless a friend comes to ours or she goes shopping or cinema and is always home before dark. im not saying there is a corellation between the two but i do beleive that these things make a child feel more grown up therefore beleiving they are adults. I may have a nasty shock and find out one day that the way i view my DD is wrong but i have total trust and a great relationship with her and hope it remains that way. She isnt given oppotunities to do these things but i know i will have to give her more freedom but at the moment she doesnt want or need it so we are ok :)

From what was said on radio this morning I inferred that only the progesterone-only pill would only be prescribed for 28 days, and only in cases where the girl had already asked for MAP, AND only with a referral to a sex counselling centre (not girl's own GP, but someone who could review her medical history records), about an ongoing prescription.

In one of the areas where this program has been piloted, they only had 4 under 16s who got contraception in the pilot period (sorry don't have all details), and the contraception was not advertised, only offered to those who met all conditions as above. It wasn't an epidemic of randy teens getting whatever they asked for with no followup.

At that age I wanted to be doubly protected. 99% wasn't enough for me. I used the pill and condoms every single time. It was only when I was 17 and started seeong someone else that I asked him.to accompany me to get tested and we'd ditch the condoms once we both got the all clear. I've done that with every partner or used condoms.

I think we are forcing our kids to grow up too soon - see the recent Mumsnet campaign on let girls be girls. Internet porn is easily accessible and shocking figures showed that kids by the age of 11 had accessed it. There are padded bras, thongs for girls, inappropriate messages on t-shirts etc. We had none of that when I was a kid, the closest I got was discovering playboy mags hidden in bushes.

Children are growing up far too soon and having responsibility thrust upon them. In year 7, the first year of secondary, they are just 11 and 12, coming home and still playing with dolls, sleeping with teddies, playing role-play games, making dens and then going to school and learning about dildos (as my dd learnt this week ).

At 13 they are just children still. If anyone over 16 is having sex with a 13yo that is classed as abuse. That person would be placed on the sex offenders register.

Yes some posters might have found the love of their lives at 14, some might never have regretted having sex at the age of 13, but these are exceptions to the rule. MOST 13yo girls are far too emotionally immature to be having sex imo.

Waving the contraceptive pill at them will not make the problem go away. This is a cynical attempt by the government to once again appear liberal and friendly. If you want to stop teenage pregnancies then give kids what they actually want, which is a better sex education that also focuses on saying no and emotions and relationships. Make condoms free over the counter at chemists. Stop the sexualisation of children and make sure that every single pc sold has parental controls that need to be taken off by the parent.

Putting 13yo girls on the pill is not the answer to teenage pregnancy, that just ensures that the rates of STIs goes up (which it already is doing amongst young people) and don't forget that chlamydia can render a girl infertile. Also tell boys that they too, are responsible for STIs and pregnancies and that condoms are ESSENTIAL if they are to have sex, i.e. they should NOT be having sex if they don't have a condom.

And just to say that the one night stand I did have and used a condom with resulted in DD1 and a year down the line seeing the one night stand again as a boyfriend and now a fiance :o

sickandtired - That is fair enough but I was just counteracting that the reason all girls ahve sex is because they are given too much freedom, which I dont think is always the case. I had the most conservative upbringing in the universe and my mum didnt even agree with me wearing mini skirts or strappy tops in my 20s and used to say sex is for your wedding night and not before.

I dont think allowing contraception makes a parent irresponsible or a bad parent, and I would allow contraception if dd came to me

well said TheRhubarb!!!

I'm concerned about how joined up medical records would be. After pregnancy complications, no doctor would prescribe oestrogen-based medication to me, any more. I've also been warned that close female relatives (like any daughters) should also be avoid them. Now, I plan to discuss that kind of medical history in the future, anyway.

But if I didn't, or she forgot, or she tried to avoid mentioning it, I think that my doctor would remember and try to steer her way through the resulting minefield. (Poor doctor. How would it work? "Jessie'sDaughter, I have reason to think you shouldn't take options A, B, or D. It's condoms, IUD, or Progesterone-Only Pill for you. But I can't tell you why, without violating medical confidentiality.")

But if my hypothetical daughter goes to a pharmacist, there will be no medical records for s/he to check.

Mind you, I suppose the same problem might come up, if my daughter changed doctors' surgery, though.

Of course 13 is too young to be on the pill. I should read the discussion, but really what is there to discuss?

I think it shouldn't be ignored that dumping a whole load of hormones in your body can cause depression, mood swings, weight gain- all types of hormonal contraception do this to me and because of the health inequalities in this country, I was ignorant of the fact that it was the pill making me so psycopathic unhappy.

It destroyed my relationship with first serious boyfriend and put me in a dark place for over a year when I should have been enjoying myself.

I am not against it, if 13 year old's and their parents are correctly educated about the side effects and are told what to look out for so that they don't have to go through what me and many of my friends went through then they can make an informed decision.

As a side note, the pill (three diff types) made me lose my libido and made me a bit in need of lube.

I remember being 13 and that desire was strong but in hind-sight I wish I hadn't let my low self esteem dictate how I used my body, I wasn't emotionally ready for sex and only started to have good sex when I was much older because I didn't have the vocabulary, confidence or knowledge to know that I didn't have to act like a porn star or do things which if I'm honest kind of hurt.

Aargh, x-post!

"I wasn't emotionally ready for sex and only started to have good sex when I was much older because I didn't have the vocabulary, confidence or knowledge to know that I didn't have to act like a porn star or do things which if I'm honest kind of hurt."

That reminds me of this Newsbeat article in which 2 older teenage girls talk about the effect porn has had on their relationships with men. And remember, these are older girls who come under pressure to do things boys have seen on porn vids, not immature and vulnerable 13yo girls.

I am not against 13 year olds going on the pill but am against them being able to get it from a pharmacy without full medical history being taken.
The reason for this is that I have very serious side effects I develop blood clots when on the pill and also when pregnant and could have easily died!I developed 2 dvt's and thought they were just back ache .this was at the age of 21!
If I was not being closely monitored at the time I would not be here.
Yes we should allow them to be responsible but it needs to be closely monitored

TheRubarb
I know I'm lucky in that the porn I was exposed to as a kid was just my brothers (quite innocent now I look back) magazines and cards my dad simply isnt into that so I think I had a good back ground.

my brothers porn he sometimes left laying around in his room, was just boobs and bums and nothing too disturbing.

My first BF was a nice guy however, he had (like most young men) watched porn and had this thing about releasing himself either on my face or my breasts, my next BF was also into this, I just assumed that this was a normal part of peoples sex lives but when I got older and had a broader outlook on the world I realised that this kind of action was coming from pornography and men who have no respect for women and women who sadly have no respect for themselves.

Pornography for the most part is made by men for men, the other day I saw this video where this woman was penetrating another women with her fingers and kind of hatefully looking at her whilst doing it and the woman on the receiving end was faking some major quadruple orgasms, I know, as a woman that this simply wouldn't warrant such a fuss!

So not only are young men being lead to beleive that they know what women like through porn they are then delivering crap sex to the girls (who collude with this crazy unsexy sex by faking orgasms to keep men on top).

So now I'm wiser and older and I wish I could say to young women in sex education "the first thing you need to establish is that you have an orgasm first a REAL one"

Rant over

I don't like it. I don't want my teen daughter to get pregnant, but I don't want her to get an STI either. Teen pregnancy rates have decreased, but I feel that this has come at a significant cost, the increasing STI transmission rate for that same age group. It's a horribly one sided way of tackling teen pregnancy, focussing solely on girls and doing nothing to teach boys the importance of safe sex.

Throwing the contraceptive pill at teen girls might stop them getting pregnant, but it also guarantees that some of those girls will contract an STI. Chlamydia - the most common one iirc can by without symptoms and may leave you infertile. HIV has a long period of dormancy in which an infected person is practically asymptomatic. Between 1 in 4 and 1 in 6 young people have an STI, depending on where you are in England, imv that's a way bigger issue than the 30 odd thousand teenage girls who become pregnant in a year.

If we think that teen girls are so squeamish and shy that they won't go to their doctors for contraception, then why should we believe that these same girls will go to the doctors if they've got an unusual discharge or itch?

way to young.

i think it adds a certain pressure upton children that its actually ok to have sex as a child when its not.

maybe 15 at the v earliest, against that really too

My only issue with the pill being easily accessable is that I think it can give a false security to some. The pill obviously only pretects against unwanted pregnancy not STDs and they are just as common and some are symptonless. I have a friend who got pregnant by a guy she barely knew because they weren't using anything. Why? "The doctor said I couldn't get pregnant!" Erm... but you can still get STDs, Love. She'd only considered pregnancy. She was in her early 20s so old enough to know better (you would have thought anyway).

Protects, not pretects.

13 year olds will not take the pill correctly. They will forget the odd day. They will end up getting pregnant. Plus the required medical monitoring will not be taking place. So a really bad idea imo. The ones who really need it won't go and get it because they want a baby to love and to love them.

I agree 100% with Blapbird's post, and TheRhubarb's wrt the general culture, sex ed and condoms and responsibility. Sex ed should start in schools at age 4.

Plus the required medical monitoring will not be taking place

You don't know that! That's entirely speculation.

Having access to contraception doesn't make you have sex! This pill is only for those who seek it out, so common sense dictates that girls who seek it out are already thinking of having sex.

If people aren't educated well enough to know that condoms are required to prevent STIs there's the problem. You need better education rather than lack of access to the pill.

Rhubarb "I don't think that you can relate single experiences to an entire generation of teenage girls."

People have just used experience and anecdotes to back up points, the same way you have.

I think some protection against some danger is better than no protection against any danger. Of course condoms and pill is the ideal, but, as someone said earlier, condoms aren't ever so reliable, especially among inexperienced teenagers. I'd had the morning after pill twice by the time I was 19, due to genuine accidents with condoms with my long term boyfriend. After the second time we gave up on condoms and I had the injection.

I'm concerned about the idea of the pill being given to anyone without access to medical records, but I think it's better that teenagers are educated, advised and encouraged to use contraception rather than told to Just Say No. They will continue to say Yes, and need to be able to do that as safely as possible.

From an adult perspective, 13 probably is too young for most people, but teenagers don't see the world from an adult perspective.

I think it is sad they are even in a situation where that is on the agenda. Surely, good home life at that age would satisfy most.

'If people aren't educated well enough to know that condoms are required to prevent STIs there's the problem. You need better education rather than lack of access to the pill.'

Not necessarily the kind of sex ed that emphasises the nuts and bolts. The kind of sex ed that is necessary is the kind that can counteract the message boys see in pornography, where (1) condoms are generally few and far between, and (2) where girls and women exist for the use and benefit of men.

After all, people are educated enough to know they should go to get the pill if they are sexually active, right? That is surely the premise behind having it available otc. Condoms are available otc already. What is to stop 13 year olds getting a supply of condoms?

(Answer: boys don't like them)