The latest article to be published at Online First is:

Questions about intimate partner violence should be part of contraceptive counselling: findings from a community-based longitudinal study in Nicaragua by Mariano Salazar, Eliette Valladares, Ulf Högberg.

Neelima Deshapande (Associate editor) writes:

Effect of domestic violence on contraceptive choice

Sadly, domestic violence against women continues in many countries. This study from Nicaragua looks at the impact of intimate partner violence (IPV) on the choices that women make about their contraception. It appears that women who are abused tend to use more reversible contraception than women who are not and that women actually make conscious choices about delaying pregnancies far more often when their partner is violent than if they are in a non-violent relationship This study quantifies the high proportion of women suffering from IPV and adds strength to the argument that enquiry about domestic violence should be included in contraceptive choices consultations and steps taken to identify and refer appropriately.

Emergency Contraception in Advance:
The BPAS christmas campaign (at www.santacomes.org) to offer free EHC through the post caused the usual mixed tranche of reactions in the media – all of which will hopefully succeed in raising awareness, as described in Marge Berer’s wonderful blog on 12th December. The FSRH have issued a Faculty statement on the subject saying that at a time of limited access advance provision will be in the best interests of many women.

FPA/Brook have issued a response to the Systematic Review of Induced Abortion and Women’s Mental Health discussed last week.

FPA have, today, issued a reaction to the Health Survey for England 2010, published yesterday, which shows that 1 in 4 women claim to have lost their virginity before their 16th birthday. Like the BPAS EHC campaign, above, the Survey has brought out the worst of our tabloid and conservative press with predictable, extreme headlines. However, as reported in The Independent, the authors noted that surveys of sexual behaviour are hard to interpret as responses are subject to both exaggeration and concealment. In addition (but less reported) it showed 26% of women and 32% of men aged 16 to 24 say they have never had sex and across all age groups, men have typically had 9.3 female sexual partners in their lifetime, while women have slept with an average of 4.7 men and almost a quarter of all women (24%) have only ever had one sexual partner, compared to 17% of men. With regards to methods of contraception it showed that equal numbers of women (22%) were using condoms or pills compared with 7% using LARC.