Male1: Many times, pediatricians get a hysterical phone call—somebody, practiced and had sex and what do they have for a barrier—they did not work it, it was open, there was a hole in it and who knows what, what should you tell them?
Male2: Well, one of the new things that are available to us as pediatricians is something called emergency contraception. Emergency contraception actually has been around for many, many years and we have used it in people who have been raped. We now know that if you have unplanned sex and was unprotected—that is nobody used a condom or the condom broke or slipped off that we can use this form of emergency contraception and the trade name is called Plan B to keep adolescent girls from getting pregnant. Within five days after protected intercourse, either the condom broke or the condom was not used, using emergency contraception, Plan B is safe and will result in not getting pregnant.
It is not an abortion pill. It does not cause an abortion so that if you are pregnant and you take it, nothing will happen. It does not harm the fetus in any way and will not result in an abortion. But within the first five days after unprotected sex, emergency contraception is appropriate and it is important for teenagers and their parents to know that they are calling their pediatrician and getting that prescription for emergency contraception, they can prevent a pregnancy or an abortion.
Male1: If it was a rape or they did not know the person who had sex with them is there a risk of HIV?
Male2: There is not only the risk of HIV, there is the risk of syphilis. There is the risk of gonorrhea. There is the risk of Chlamydia. There is a risk of any sexually transmitted disease, so that when we see girls who have been raped, we screen them and we treat them as if they have been exposed. We want to make sure that an adolescent or a young woman who has already gone through the traumatic experience of being raped, which certainly is sad does not additionally have to develop sexually transmitted disease, so we screen them and we treat them.
We also give them emergency contraception to make sure that that rape does not result in an unwanted pregnancy.
Male1: So in other words, you can actually give them an HIV drug protocol for a certain period of time and reduce the risk dramatically of it happening, is that correct?
Male2: That is correct, not only will we do an HIV test at the time that the adolescent comes in saying that she has been raped or he has been raped, we will also provide them not with a prescription, but we actually provide the anti-HIV medications for them to take for a period of weeks so that if they have been exposed, it lessens the likelihood that they will become HIV-positive.
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