Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Teen Birth Control Use Linked to Depression Risk in Adulthood

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on MedicalXpress.

Women who used oral contraceptives during adolescence are more likely to develop depression as adults, suggests new research from the University of British Columbia.

In a study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, researchers found teenage birth control pill users were 1.7 times to three times more likely to be clinically depressed in adulthood, compared to women who started taking birth control pills as adults, and to women who had never taken birth control pills.

The study is the first to look at oral contraceptive use during adolescence and its link with women's long-term vulnerability to depression. Depression is the leading cause of disability and suicide deaths worldwide, and women are twice as likely as men to develop depression at some point in their lives.

"Our findings suggest that the use of oral contraceptives during adolescence may have an enduring effect on a woman's risk for depression—even years after she stops using them," said Christine Anderl, the study's first author and a UBC psychology postdoctoral fellow. "Adolescence is an important period for brain development. Previous animal studies have found that manipulating sex hormones, especially during important phases of brain development, can influence later behaviour in a way that is irreversible."

The researchers analyzed data from a population-representative survey of 1,236 women in the U.S. and controlled for a number of factors that have previously been proposed to explain the relationship between oral contraceptive use and depression risk. These include age at onset of menstruation, age of first sexual intercourse and current oral contraceptive use.

While the data clearly shows a relationship between birth control use during adolescence and increased depression risk in adulthood, the researchers note that it does not prove one causes the other.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-08-teen-birth-linked-depression-adulthood.html

Teen Birth Control Use Up, But Still Too Many Unwanted Pregnancies

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Today's teens are better at using birth control when they first become sexually active, but many unexpected pregnancies still occur, new research finds.

Teens who didn't use birth control during their first month of sexual activity faced nearly a fourfold increase in the risk of an unwanted pregnancy within three months, the study found.

Teens who didn't use birth control during their first month of sexual activity faced nearly a fourfold increase in the risk of an unwanted pregnancy within three months, the study found.

"Our findings suggest that early information about and access to contraception may help teenagers to avoid unwanted pregnancy," said study author Dr. Mara Murray Horwitz. She's a research fellow in Harvard Medical School's Department of Population Medicine.

Access to the full range of birth control options, such as birth control pills, implants and intrauterine devices (IUDs), increased more over time in white women and in women in higher income groups, according to Murray Horwitz.

Women between the ages of 18 and 24 see the highest rates of unintended pregnancy, according to background information in the study. Unintended pregnancies are also more common in Hispanic and black women, as well as in women in lower-income groups, the researchers said.

Unplanned pregnancies are associated with delayed pregnancy care, premature birth and low birth weight. Lowering the rates of unintended pregnancy rates is a national public health priority, the researchers added.

To see what effect birth control has had over the years, Murray Horwitz and her colleagues reviewed data from a nationally representative survey that occurred in stages, beginning in 1973. Answers from more than 25,000 women were included.

The average age at which female teens began having sex -- 17 -- didn't really change over the years.

But the use of birth control did improve. The initiation of contraception beforethe first sexual experience rose from less than 10 percent in the 1970s to more than 25 percent in the 2000s. The rate of birth control initiation during the first sexual experience was about 40 percent. The most common method used was the male condom, the study said.

Rates of timely birth control use (within the first month of sexual activity) were highest in white women, at around 85 percent. Hispanic women saw the most dramatic increase in early contraceptive use -- from 38 percent in the 1970s to 72 percent in 2010-2014.

Murray Horwitz said that while the study wasn't designed to tease out the reasons for improved used of contraception around sexual debut, she suspects that increased access to birth control methods, such as condoms, as well as more education and awareness, likely played a role.

She said pediatricians and parents can help by making sure teens are educated and have access to birth control methods.

Dr. John Steever, a pediatrician at Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center in New York City, agreed that it's important for teens to have information.

"There's been an emphasis on talking to kids about abstinence and waiting to have sex, but when you look at the age of sexual debut, it hasn't changed in 40 years. Our children are going to be having sex, and probably before they're in a long-term monogamous relationship," said Steever, who wasn't involved in the study.

"Given that, the way to reduce the risk of unwanted pregnancy is to talk about birth control and healthy sexual relationships. Parents can talk about abstinence, too, but if you talk to them, kids will have a much better idea how to protect themselves," he explained.

And don't just have "the talk" with your child, Steever advised. "Start early and have multiple small conversations to help them learn about positive, healthy relationships," he said.

The study was published online in Pediatrics.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/women-s-health-information-34/birth-control-news-62/teen-birth-control-use-up-but-still-too-many-unwanted-pregnancies-741554.html

Parents Teach Firstborns About Sex, But Not Their Later Kids

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Younger siblings are less likely than firstborns to hear about the birds and the bees from their parents, a new study suggests.

Instead, they may learn what's what from their older brothers and sisters, British researchers report.

"Although there has been much research into how the order in which children are born into a family may impact psychological or social outcomes, studies on the relationship between birth order and sexual health outcomes are limited," said Dr. Lotte Elton, who led the research.

The study also found that parents are less likely to teach their sons about sex than their daughters, according to Elton and colleagues at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

"Across all birth order categories, men consistently reported lower parental involvement in sex education than women," Elton said.

It's not known if learning the facts of life from Mom and Dad delays sex. But middle-born boys -- those less likely to have parental instruction -- had increased odds of sexual activity before 16, the researchers also found.

For the study, the researchers collected data on more than 45,000 people who took part in the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles in Britain.

The researchers focused on 5,000 individuals ages 17 to 29 who answered questions about the involvement of parents or siblings in sex education and early sexual experiences.

The study found that 48 percent of firstborn girls and 37 percent of firstborn boys had discussed sex with a parent at age 14. This compared with 40 percent of middle-born girls and 29 percent of middle-born boys.

Furthermore, middle-born and last-born boys were less likely than firstborns to say talking about sex with their parents was easy.

The report was published in the journal Sex Education.

Later-born children said siblings played a bigger role than their parents in teaching them about puberty and reproduction. This suggests brothers and sisters might be helpful in sex education programs, the researchers noted.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/pregnancy-information-29/love-sex-and-relationship-health-news-452/parents-teach-firstborns-about-sex-but-not-their-later-kids-738053.html

Sex, Drugs Hold Less Allure for Today's High Schoolers

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Today's teens are a much tamer lot, a new U.S. government survey finds.

Fewer high school students are turning to sex or drugs, with the 2017 rates the lowest reported since the survey began in 1991, said researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The health of our youth reflects the nation's well-being," CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said in an agency news release. "In the past decade, there have been substantial improvements in the behaviors that put students most at risk for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases."

Between 2007 and 2017, the percentage of high school students who said they had ever had sex fell from 48 percent to 39.5 percent, and the percentage who said they'd had four or more sexual partners decreased from 15 percent to just under 10 percent.

But the news is not all good. Many teens are still at risk for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, are victims of violence, or feel sad and hopeless, the survey showed. And condom use declined from 62 percent to slightly less than 54 percent.

"Teenagers seem to be waiting longer to have sex and are having fewer partners, on average, but are not using condoms to prevent pregnancy or [STDs]," said Dr. Michael Grosso, chair of pediatrics at Northwell Health's Huntington Hospital in Huntington, N.Y.

Redfield noted that there is still a long way to go with American teens.

"We can't yet declare success when so many young people are getting HIV and STDs, and experiencing disturbingly high rates of substance use, violence and suicide," Redfield said.

Still, the percentage of high school students who said they had ever used illicit drugs (cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, inhalants, hallucinogens or ecstasy) fell from 23 percent in 2007 to 14 percent in 2017.

But in a sign that the opioid epidemic has a strong hold on U.S. children, a full 14 percent of teens said they had misused prescription opioid painkillers in 2017, the first year such data was collected.

While teens may be practicing less risky behaviors, their mental health is less promising, the survey showed.

The rate of high school students who felt sad or hopeless rose from 29 percent in 2007 to 32 percent in 2017, according to the findings published in the June 15 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/kids-health-information-23/adolescents-and-teen-health-news-719/sex-drugs-hold-less-allure-for-today-s-high-schoolers-734877.html

Teen Sexting Often Tied to Past Sexual Abuse

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Teens who share sexually explicit texts or emails -- "sexters" -- are more likely to have suffered sexual abuse than their peers, recent survey results suggest.

For some teenagers, "sexting may be a part of normal sexual development," said study lead author Dr. Kanani Titchen.

But for others, it "may be an indicator of an unhealthy romantic relationship or a history of sexual abuse," said Titchen, a postdoctoral fellow at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York City.

The research team surveyed nearly 600 teens living in a high-poverty area of the Bronx in New York City.

"We found that approximately 25 percent of girls and 20 percent of boys between the ages of 14 and 17 years old had ever sent a sexually suggestive or naked picture by text or email," Titchen said.

Teens who sexted were also more likely to have had sex, she added.

"These two findings were not surprising, and are consistent with findings from previous studies of sexting among teens," Titchen said.

But girls who said they'd been sexually abused or victimized by an intimate partner were four and three times more likely, respectively, to have sexted than other girls, she said.

And boys who had been sexually abused or victimized were twice as likely to say they'd exchanged sexual messages or images.

The study also indicated that while girls and boys send sexts at similar rates, girls are about three times more likely to feel pressured to sext.

The findings "suggest that in urban, high-poverty communities like the Bronx, teen sexting may be part of a continuum of abusive and exploitative sexual experience for both girls and boys," Titchen said.

Participants were recruited in hospital clinic waiting rooms. Just over a third were boys. Almost 60 percent were Hispanic, and more than one-quarter were black.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/health-technology-information-18/cellphone-health-news-729/teen-sexting-often-tied-to-past-sexual-abuse-733730.html

Teens, Parents Aren't on Same Page When Talk Turns to Sex

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

When it comes to having "the talk," many teens admit they're not communicating with their parents or their doctors about sex, new research reveals.

"Teens and young adults account for more STIs [sexually transmitted infections] than all other ages combined," said study co-author Dr. Kari Schneider, an assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota.

"Pediatricians and parents play a vital role in discussing STIs and safer sex practices with adolescents," she added in a news release from the Pediatric Academic Societies.

For the new study, researchers asked close to 600 teens, aged 13 to 17, how often they talked to their parents about sex.

The teens were also asked if they'd seen a doctor in the past year, if they had talked to a doctor about sex, and if they had been screened for a sexually transmitted disease.

In addition, the researchers polled 516 parents of teens, asking them how often they talked about sex with their children and if they were aware of discussions their child had with a doctor about sex.

The poll showed that 45 percent of the teens were not routinely asked about sex by their doctor. And sexually transmitted disease screening was offered to only 13 percent of them.

Interestingly, just 39 percent of the teens said they talked to their parents about sex, while 90 percent of the parents reported having such a discussion with their teens.

The researchers noted that teen girls were asked about sex more often than boys. And mothers were more likely to talk about sex with their children.

According to the report, older teens were more likely to have discussions about sex and be offered screening.

The researchers pointed out that nearly half of the parents polled were aware of discussions about sex between their teen and a doctor, but 25 percent of the parents in the study didn't think these conversations should take place.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/kids-health-information-23/children-and-teen-sex-news-605/teens-parents-aren-t-on-same-page-when-talk-turns-to-sex-733384.html

Big Decline in Births to Girls Under 15

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

There's been a steep decline over the past two decades in births to American girls under the age of 15, a new report finds.

Overall, "the number of U.S. births to females aged 10 to 14 was a record low in 2016, dropping to 2,253 from 8,519 in 2000," a team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote.

Said another way, that means that the birth rate in this age group fell from 0.9 per 1,000 females in 2000 to just 0.2 births per 1,000 by 2016.

And the pace at which these declines have occurred has accelerated over time, the CDC noted, with the greatest improvements seen since 2008.

Why these much-welcomed trends?

The CDC researchers said that "a number of factors have been cited," including a trend among the very young to delay first sex; decreased frequency of sexual activity; and "for sexually active teenagers, the use of effective contraception."

Dr. Jennifer Wu, an obstetrician/gynecologist who works with young girls and women, called the report "a huge victory from a public health standpoint."

"Pregnancies at such a young age pose large risks to the young mother," she noted. "Often the pelvis is still small and these pregnancies may end up requiring cesarean sections. This then has implications for future pregnancies."

And of course there's the impact that becoming pregnant so young can have on long-term outcomes for mom and baby.

According to study co-authors T.J. Mathews and Brady Hamilton, "Childbearing by very young mothers is a matter of public concern because of the elevated health risks for these mothers and their infants and the socioeconomic consequences." Mathews and Hamilton work at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

There was more good news from the report: The "race gap" in births to underage girls is also shrinking. In fact, the largest decline in births for girls aged 10 to 14 occurred among black girls, the findings showed.

Not every state benefited from these trends equally, however. Births to young girls tended to be highest in southern states, with Louisiana and Mississippi maintaining rates above 0.5 births per 1,000, the investigators reported. Delaware and the District of Columbia also had relatively high rates.

The findings were published April 25 as an NCHS Data Brief.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/pregnancy-information-29/teen-pregnancy-news-547/big-decline-in-births-to-girls-under-15-cdc-says-733250.html

Early Periods Tied to Mental Health Issues in Adulthood

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Mental health problems can last into adulthood for girls who start having their periods at an early age, a new study suggests.

Previous research had found that girls with early periods have more frequent and severe mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety and eating disorders. They're also more prone to substance abuse, delinquency and failing or dropping out of school.

How long these problems usually last, though, has been unclear.

The new study followed nearly 8,000 U.S. girls for about 14 years, generally from adolescence until their late 20s. The younger the girls were when their periods started, the more likely they were to have depression and antisocial behaviors, such as acting out, rule-breaking and delinquency.

These problems persisted at least until the girls were in their late 20s, the researchers found.

"It can be very easy for people to dismiss the emotional challenges that come along with growing up as a girl, and say, 'Oh, it's just that age; it's what everyone goes through,'" study author Jane Mendle said in a news release from Cornell University.

"But not everyone goes through it, and it's not just 'that age,'" Mendle said. "And it's not trivial. It puts these girls on a path from which it is hard to deviate." She's an associate professor of human development at Cornell.

The average age girls get their first period is now 12.5 years old, according to the researchers. Over the past 50 years, this age has become lower and lower. Today, one-third of American girls are having their first period by age 8, Mendle's team said.

The study also found that the behavior of girls who matured early tended to worsen as they got older. Mendle said that's the opposite of the normal pattern of teen development.

"Usually people aren't shoplifting at 25 as much as they do at 15," she said. "But these kids did not show the typical age-related declines in antisocial behavior, and their behaviors got worse."

The findings of Mendle and her colleagues were published in Pediatrics.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/kids-health-information-23/adolescents-and-teen-health-news-719/early-periods-tied-to-mental-health-issues-into-adulthood-731593.html

More U.S. Teens Are Rejecting 'Boy" or 'Girl' Gender Identities

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on CNN.

More teenagers are identifying themselves with nontraditional gender labels such as transgender or gender-fluid, according to a new study.

The research, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, found that almost 3% of Minnesota teens did not identify with traditional gender labels such as "boy" or "girl." That number is higher than researchers expected. A UCLA study from a year ago estimated that 0.7% of teens identified as transgender.

Lead researcher Nic Rider of the University of Minnesota said the main purpose of the new study was to examine health differences between gender-nonconforming teens and teens who are cisgender, a person whose gender identity aligns with the sex assigned to them at birth.

The study found that transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) youth reported "reported significantly poorer health" -- including mental health -- than cisgender teenagers. TGNC teens also were less likely to get preventive health checkups and more likely to visit their school nurse, the study found.

But more surprising may have been the rising percentage of teens who say they don't fit traditional gender norms.

The study supports prior research suggesting "that previous estimates of the size of the TGNC population have been underestimated by orders of magnitude," wrote Daniel Shumer, a specialist in transgender medicine at the University of Michigan, in an accompanying opinion article.

Rider is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota's Program in Human Sexuality. For their research, Rider's team examined data from a 2016 survey of almost 81,000 Minnesota students in the 9th and 11th grades.

Nearly 2,200 of these teens -- about 2.7% -- answered yes to the question: Do you consider yourself transgender, genderqueer, gender-fluid or unsure of your gender identification? The term "genderqueer" describes a person who does not subscribe to conventional gender distinctions and may identify with neither, both, or a combination of male and female identities.

That's a big jump from the UCLA study, which was published in January 2017 and estimated that 0.7% of American teens ages 13-17 identify as transgender.

That study was based on government data on adults collected by 27 US states in 2014 and 2015. The survey's researchers used the adult data to estimate the percentage of transgender teens.

Source: CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/06/health/teens-gender-nonconforming-study-trnd/index.html

Teens Are Delaying Having Sex

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Fewer U.S. teens are sexually active these days, as many wait until later in high school to try sex for the first time, a new report reveals.

The proportion of high school students who've ever had sex decreased to 41 percent in 2015, continuing a downward trend from 47 percent in 2005 and 53 percent in 1995, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The significance of these findings are important for today's youth," said Dr. Victor Fornari, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Hospital, in Glen Oaks, N.Y. "This is very positive and promising."

The decrease is mainly driven by a decline in the number of 9th and 10th graders having sex, according to the report by Kathleen Ethier and colleagues at the CDC.

Sexually active 9th graders decreased from 34 percent to 24 percent between 2005 and 2015, while 10th graders having sex declined from 43 percent to 36 percent during the same time period.

By comparison, significant declines in sexual activity were not found among 11th and 12th graders, the researchers added.

The percentage of black and Hispanic teens experimenting with sex also went down, contributing to the overall decline in sexually active kids.

On the other hand, sexual activity among white teens did not change significantly, the investigators found.

The decrease in sexual activity involved both boys and girls. Among 9th graders, about 27 percent of boys and 21 percent of girls said they had become sexually active in 2015, down from 39 percent and 29 percent, respectively, in 2005.

Health experts suggested that sex education is the most likely explanation for the trend.

The findings were published in the Jan. 5 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/kids-health-information-23/children-and-teen-sex-news-605/good-news-for-parents-teens-are-delaying-having-sex-729906.html