15.2 Emergency contraception
1 Emergency contraception (EC) should be made available to an adolescent who has had unprotected sexual intercourse within 72 hours prior to presentation, regardless of the stage of her menstrual cycle.
Introduction
Emergency contraception (EC) or post-coital contraception can be defined as preventing pregnancy after sexual intercourse. Every year over 3.5 million unintended pregnancies occur in the United States alone, mostly to teenage mothers. It is believed that half of these unintended pregnancies could be avoided by the judicious use of EC. Indications for the provision of EC are shown in Table 15.2.1.1
Many of these unintended pregnancies are later surgically terminated. Estimates of as many as 170 000 such terminations are performed in England and Wales annually.2 These surgical terminations are not without clinical risk and cost, as well as being a major social, religious and political issue.
