Welsh Teens: Pills and Pregnancy Week In Week Out

Had unprotected sex the night before? This pill may get you off

the hook. Free soon from all Welsh pharmacies. Even to under-16s. Some

see it as a good thing. Young girls who do not have money and worries

about going to the doctors, they can just go there and they do not

have to pay for it. Others aren't so sure. Sex, sexuality is a human

activity. It has consequences. is better than nothing. But still a

high chance of you getting pregnant. I think handing pills out over the

counter is just encouraging kids to I can feel it! Charlotte is 15 and

five months pregnant. It just kicked me! Oh my God! It kicked me.

Her friend Nikita isn't much older and has her own baby. Nikita's

supporting her friend and today, along with grandmother Shirley,

they've come to Swansea's Singleton hospital for Charlotte's check up.

They are going to send me for tests to see how the growth of the baby

is. She is a bit worried. They say it is normal in youngsters and even

in fourteen-year-old. She was only �6 when she was born so probably

the baby will be a bit small but I am sure she will be all right.

She's one of about 400 girls under 16 who get pregnant in Wales every

year. I knew straight away I was pregnant. They can go on holiday

together. There will only be eight months between them. What's the

advice? Gas and air! Seriously. It kills. It is not difficult to think

about contraception but it is not 100% anyway so you could use the

morning-after pill but it is not always 100%. You could use condoms

and they are not 100%. They could get damaged or split. You can have

a Rodda Mach can snap. You can even be pregnant before you have had it

in and it takes seven days to get used to your body. Charlotte's

struggles with contraception have left her with an unplanned

pregnancy but not an unwanted baby. She lives with her grandparents in

Mansleton, Swansea. These things happen. She is not the first and

she will not be the last. I was worried in the beginning because of

her age. I thought that perhaps she would miss out on her teenage years.

But as the weeks are going on, I am looking forward to it. We will help

are all we can. But I think she'll make a good mother. Kita and

Charlotte's babies were unplanned. The Welsh government wants to cut

down on the number of unintended teenage conceptions. It's one of

the aims of its sexual health strategy. Emergency contraception

is to be made more widely available. The so-called morning after pill,

if taken soon after sex, can prevent pregnancy. It's been

available from pharmacies over the counter at �26 a pill. Over the

last ten years more and more chemists have been providing it

free, under a Welsh government scheme. You are the pharmacist here.

If I was to come in as a woman wanting emergency contraception,

how would you deal with they? would be given to pieces of

information to start with. One would be that you can obtain

emergency contraception from us and the second thing would be that you

have to answer a number of questions, some of which will be

personal. If you are agreeable to that, someone would call me and I

would come and have a word. The whole process would occur within a

By the autumn, every pharmacy in Wales should have joined the scheme

supplying free pills. This is a private room. We have to have a

private room to be part of the scheme. The Welsh government says

pharmacies have a key role in the strategy to reduce unwanted

pregnancies. They are open for longer and are often more

convenient than NHS centres. We are available outside office hours.

Pharmacy services are available over seven days a week. Timeliness

is important in this context because emergency contraception is

only useful for up to 72 hours. There is a difference in

effectiveness over that period of time. The sooner the client

accesses the services, the better. If the pharmacist is satisfied

after a 20-minute consultation, they can supply the pill even to

girls as young as 13. It's a confidential service, so parents

don't have to be informed. Steve Newbury's been part of the scheme

now for two years. The majority of clients that I have seen have been

older than 16. Probably two clients out of more than 200 clients who

have access the scheme here would be under 16. How to help teenagers

make the right choices about when to have a baby is an important

issue for everyone. What about another baby? What contraception?

Projects like this in Barry help teenage mums after they've given

birth. There's lots of advice, a creche and a very supportive

atmosphere. Tamara Davies is a 16- year-old single mother. I was only

with the baby's dad for one month. When I found out I was scared and

shocked. After its Hunkin, the next day I was excited but still a bit

scared at the same time. I was not on anything because I was only with

the baby's dad for one month and we were not doing anything. I was

going up the doctors to go up -- a go on the pale and we slept

together the once and that was when it occurred so by the time I'd got

to the doctor up it had already occurred. Amy Burnett was pregnant

at 17 and that was also unplanned. I was three-and a-half months and I

found out. When I found out, it happened really quit after that. It

was shock. I was working and I worked until I was about eight

months. I had a massive bump but it went really quick. Amy's life has

changed since she's had Brandon. You have times when you ask him to

go to sleep and you just want to get everything done and you have to

leave it until they are asleep and then you can get everything done.

But until then it is just, do my dishes, do my foot and you have to

feed them first but I am used to it now. A lot of the goals I work with

our children having children and they lose a lot of their self-

confidence and self-esteem when they find themselves pregnant and

quite often the circumstances that they find themselves in leaves them

very vulnerable. We want to help support them and are better

equipped they are themselves, the better they are able to develop

their children. They are very often not supported adequately. Perhaps

their partner, with whom they are having a baby, does not say with

them. Perhaps their family are not able to support them as adequately

as they need. Not everybody has an unplanned pregnancy but mistakes

happen. But supporting teenage mums with projects like this one called

Flying Start is expensive. Every pound spent on contraception saves

the public purse about ten times as much. The girls here have mixed

feeling about the morning after pill. Young girls can go in and

they can get it. You do not do it loads of time. You cannot keep

doing it but it is for an emergency. It is good for stuff like that.

encourages younger people, it is saying that they can have sex

without using anything and it does not really matter because

contraception is just on hand anyway for afterwards. I think it

is better to use other contraception so before actually

having sex. Back in Swansea, 15- year-old Charlotte agrees. I think

handing pills over the counter is encouraging teenagers to have sex,

to be honest with you. Do you think too many teenagers are having sex?

Yes, way too many. Why? Because they think they have got to do it,

just to get in at school. They think, I slept with that person,

you slept with a person. Now, as a teenage mum-to-be, Charlotte feels

stigmatised. I have had people call me slag and stuff like that. What

do you think when there and say that to you? There are girls who

have not got pregnant because they have abortions and everything. When

I was with one boy for nearly two years. Do you think you could be as

good a mum as anyone else? I will be a better mum than others. People

can turn around and say because they are young, they will not be

any good at being a mum, they do not know nothing. Well, we do.

Catholic Church has watched with growing concern the increased

availability of contraception, especially to youngsters under the

age of 16, the legal age for sex. The Catholic Church teaches that

artificial contraception is not a morally -- morally correct thing to

do. When one looks at the introduction of the morning-after

pill, which Don and straights that the separation -- demonstrates that

the separation between sexuality and sex and responsibility. You are

left with something which is devoid of its intention, a recreational

activity almost. The church and some other organisations are

particularly worried about pharmacists giving the morning

after pill to younger girls. I showed Monsignor Reardon the form

that pharmacists take girls through before agreeing to provide the drug.

Is the farmer missed its -- is the pharmacist's satisfied that it is

in the young person's best interest to give treatment? Be concern I

would have and the question I would ask his however good the pharmacist

is, he or she could quite possibly be meeting this young person for

the first time. They are asked to make a judgment on that person's

best interests without having a discussion with a parent or a

significant adults in that young NHS Sexual Health clinics like this

one, and the local GP, have been the places where teenagers have

traditionally come to get contraception. The age of people

starting to have intercourse seems to get lower and lower and we are

seeing those people, younger and younger. Often they don't think

about regular contraception until they have already had unprotected

sex. At least once. Quite often alcohol is a factor. And they lose

their inhibitions and do things they wouldn't normally do and they

take more risks with their sexual health when they have had alcohol

but then, afterwards, obviously they seem to find out when they

realise there's a problem, they seem to find died where they can

then obtain emergency contraception. Some clinicians are concerned that

the pharmacy scheme will mean that the pills will get emphasised over

other methods. The pale as emergency contraception is likely

to be preferable to do absolutely nothing if someone had unprotected

sex and doesn't want to be pregnant. But there are still a very high

chance, compared to all the other things. The device that beats these

polls by a long way is there copper coil which can be fitted also until

at least five days after the intercourse, maybe even longer.

This device has and effectiveness of at least 99% if it is used as

emergency contraception and then they can carry on using it for the

next five or 10 years, because that's how long they would last if

they would like to keep it. With the morning after pill there is a

one in 20 chance of getting pregnant compared with a one in 100

chance with the emergency IUD. People have always said I didn't

know that. It works really well, doesn't it? I am concerned that

message does not get out. Pharmacists can't fit the more

effective longer acting contraceptivies like the IUD but

say they are trained to promote them. We think about the type of

contraception that the client needs on an ongoing basis. Part of the

process is to establish, not just their need today, but whether

appropriate provision has been made into the future. Back in Swansea,

it's an important day for Charlotte. She's come for a scan. She's been

worried her baby's not growing fast enough but she's also keen to know

if it's a boy or a girl. This is the scan I was worried about the

most because this is where they can tell if the spine and everything is

OK, everything is growing. When they said about the baby's growth,

it really scared me but they says it's common with first babies,

anyway. People's first babies. It really scared me. Sheering

everything is fine or just to reassure us you, so I am really

glad. It's going to be had bring up a child on her own, yes. I was

young, 17. But then I was married and had a partner. It made it

easier then. So what about Charlotte's partner? Will the

father be with you through this? don't know. Would you like him to

be with you? In some ways yes, other ways, no. Why not? He doesn't

deserve to be a father. Is he not interested? No. In the ways you

would like him to be there, why would you like him to be there?

It's every mother's dream to have both parents there for their child.

The baby's forehead, his face. would you like best of all? If I

had a girl, I would like to bring it to dancing, singing lessons,

whatever she wants to do. Everyone has had a chance in life. I want

them to go to college. And eventually have kids of their own

when they are old enough. Not as young as you. Maybe wait until they

are a little bit older. Finally, Charlotte is getting the news she

has been waiting to hear. We are about 98% accurate, so I can tell

you I think this baby is probably a girl. Oh God! Everyone said it was

a girl. Emergency contraception is a last line of defence. The BMA,

which represents family doctors, welcomes the pharmacy scheme, but

has reservations. Pharmacists are trained very well to give the

Tablet. The difference is what the GPs are trained to do is to look at

the whole person, not just one aspect of it or one part of it, but

the broadest aspect of their health. Pharmacists say they are more

accessible than GPs. They will discuss ongoing health problems and

will suggest patients contact their doctors if necessary. But GPs still

aren't convinced. One thing you have to remember is that a GP's

surgery is like a mini hospital these days so when somebody sits

down with me and says, I need the morning after pill, I can explore

with them many other aspects of their health, for example, we can

talk about their ongoing contraceptive needs. Perhaps why

they are not on a regular contraception or the last type they

were wrong failed. Maybe we could start them on something you or

refer them if necessary. We can look perhaps if they are seeking to

become pregnant in the future, we can talk to them about health

issues so, generally speaking, when people come to see the GP, it isn't

usually just about the thing. Welsh government has identified our

high rates of teenage pregnancy as a public health priority in its

latest sexual health action plan. We've established that providing

free morning after pills through pharmacies will cost the Welsh NHS

up to �300,000 a year. And we've uncovered evidence suggesting that

this kind of scheme has little effect on teenage pregnancy rates,

bringing into question the cost- effectiveness of the policy. This

research looked at Bridgend where the scheme was first introduced ten

These findings came as no surprise to some academics who have been

studying the situation in England, where some parts have adopted a

similar scheme and some haven't. found, contrary to what people were

hoping, the introduction of the morning after pill for young people

didn't have any effect in terms of reducing teenage pregnancy rates.

There have been around two dozen studies on other countries saying

the same thing. So what could be the reasons? One of the hypotheses

is that access to the morning after pill leads to an increase in sexual

risk-taking behaviour. Another possibility that increasingly

doctors are suggesting is that some forms of emergency birth control

are less effective in preventing pregnancy than was once thought.

This professor's research suggests something else. We found that there

was a 12% relative increase in sexual infections amongst under

sixteens in the areas with emergency birth control free of

charge at pharmacies, compared to other areas. If the pharmacies

scheme increases S T Dees by encouraging risky behaviour, it

comes as no surprise to those of the morning against the whole

direction of government policy. and sexuality, reduced to a mere

biological thing, to a recreational activity, is something which has

become very, very casual and, again are separated from aspect of

intimacy, of love, and its role in the growth and the maturing of a

What is clear is that there are many reasons that teenagers get

pregnant. It certainly changes their lives. In a way, to be honest,

I think it's the best thing that's ever happened to me. I could have

been a bit older when they had a baby, but it gives you a whole

different perspective, to be honest with you. Now I realise I have got

to grow up and I'm going to be a mother, which means, like, it gives

you something to, like, grow up four. You have got a reason to,

like, grow up and do well in life and set fact that. -- and stuff

like that. We are looking at your choices have to protect yourself

physically, emotionally and in the social context of where you are at

this moment in time. Some people are babies for different reasons.

Because they want to be loved and cared for. There are no other

options for them and they think a baby will fill this gap. What were

you doing before you became pregnant? Getting drunk every

weekend. Before I had the baby. After the baby, it made my life

better, even though I can't do as much as I used to. It has made life

better. Better because you have become a mother? Yes. I started

acting different. When people used to shout at me, I started to shout

back. I came out of my shell. became more confident? Yes.

Welsh government's sexual health strategy isn't just about supplying

contraception. Sex and relationships education play a big

part. We don't want you going out there with loaded guns shooting all

over the place. We want to make sure you use your gun properly when

you should do. Does that make sense? At this school in Barry, the

boys like lessons delivered by outside agencies but criticise the

curriculum for emphasising sex over relationships. They go straight to

the physical part of the relationship, rather than intimacy

with each other. They could bring in a young couple, and married

couple, stuff like that. I think it a good idea because it shows how

you can make it successful, you could build a relationship so you

can get to a point way you are both comfortable talking about the

sexual part of their relationship. In light of all the evidence we've

seen, we wanted to ask the new health minister Lesley Griffiths

whether her department still thought the pharmacy scheme was a

good way of reducing teenage pregnancies. Our request was

declined. A welsh government spokesman said the scheme was "an

important aspect of a comprehensive sexual health service but not part

of our strategy to reduce teenage conceptions." Some observers say

that's not the impression left by her predecessor. The health

minister talked about the aim of reducing teenage pregnancy rates

and abortions so I was a bit surprised that that was being used

as a rationale for this policy and it may be that policy makers are

just not aware of the evidence on this issue. Some are calling for an

early review to see if the pharmacies scheme is working.

teenage pregnancy rate is multifactorial. We can't say it's

because of one thing or another thing so making was available, is

it part of the solution, will it actually increase good behaviour?

Will it change behaviour to make more risky behaviour more common?

Will it decrees pregnancy rates, and the evidence at the moment is,

actually, there is no good evidence that decreases teenage pregnancy

rates. And that, I think, is the fundamental question.

pharmacies scheme will be fully rolled out in a few months. About

the time Charlotte's little girl is due. And she's getting her room

ready. I'm going to put this round to the Mirror. Charlotte has

learned from experience, too. wish for a baby too quick. I used

to say I can't wait for a baby. You have got to be careful what you