Teenagers had 20 percent fewer babies in Colorado after the state made long-acting birth control like the IUD more accessible, a new study reveals.
Colorado allocated more funding to its Title X clinics - federally subsidized family planning clinics - with the specific purpose of making IUs and implants more readily available to low-income patients.
New research from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) indicates just how effective that program was at driving down teen and unwanted pregnancies without reducing birth rates among older women.
But those improvements are in jeopardy after the Trump administration issued a 'gag rule,' denying funding to any Title X clinic that provides abortions or even refers patients for abortions.
Planned Parenthood and other Title X clinics are the only resource not only for abortions but for birth control for many women.
And the new study, conducted by Texas A&M University and Miami University scientists, demonstrates just how key funding for these clinics is to reducing teen pregnancy.
Access to free IUDs (pictured, file image) and other long-acting contraception drove a 20 percent reduction in unintended teen pregnancies in Colorado, a new study found
Nearly half of all pregnancies in the US are unintended, and result in about one third of all births.
In 2015, unintended pregnancies cost American taxpayers $21 billion.
Conversely, federal and state investment in family planning - through Title X - saved the US $13.6 billion in spending on health care and outcomes for women and their families.
Although the proportion of women using some form of contraceptive is higher than it ever has been in the US (over one third), most of these women use patently less effective forms of birth control.
Forms like the pill, patches and condoms are between six and 18 percent effective at preventing pregnancy, largely due to inconsistent use by patients, whereas IUDs have a failure rate under one percent.
Plus, these devices provide protection for anywhere from three to 12 years, so even if patients using them are not regularly seeing a doctor, they will continue to be safeguarded from unintended pregnancy.
Yet only a small proportion of women - 12 percent of adults and five percent of teenagers - use IUDs or implants, according to the new study.
In an effort to change that, Colorado instated its progressive Family Planning Initiative in 2009, using $23 million of private donations to give women free access to long-acting contraception at all of its 68 federally funded Title X clinics.
The program was an enormous success, according to the new research (as well as prior reviews of the effort).
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