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Teens who talk to parents about birds and bees practice safer sex

A new American study concludes that when mothers chat to their teenagers about sex and contraception, it leads to safer teen sex, especially for girls.

In an era when young people can easily find out about sexual matters on the internet and tend to prefer discussing sex on social networks and with their friends, this study reports that to avoid risky sexual behavior, it is better for teens to have taboo-free talks with their parents, particularly mothers.

Because unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections are major public health problems, Laura Widman and her team of researchers at North Carolina State University in the US decided to investigate how teenagers communicate with their parents about sex.

In order to study the effect of good communication on teens' sexual behavior, they reviewed the large volume of medical literature on the subject (52 studies), and grouped together data from 30 years of research involving over 25,000 teenagers.

Their results, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics of November 2, demonstrated a small but significant link between good communication on sexual topics and safer sexual behavior such as responsible contraceptive and condom use. Laura Widman made it clear that this is not the only factor. The correlation was stronger for girls than boys.

The authors concluded that good communication on sexual matters, particularly between mothers and daughters, has a protective effect on adolescent contraceptive and condom use.

In an editorial accompanying this study published in the same journal, Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, co-author and researcher at New York University also noted that: "Most research has focused on parental influences in delaying sexual debut. Sexually active youths also benefit from parental discussions regarding sexual and reproductive health outcomes. Youth want to hear from their parents and overwhelmingly say that parents matter. Hence, public health efforts should support the unique role that parents can play in sexual decision making among adolescents."

Vincent Guilamo-Ramos said that many parents are concerned that if they bring up the subject, their children will be encouraged to be sexually active, and that some teens also fear "the talk."

The researchers pointed out that while a third of young Americans may be sexually active, they account for half of all sexually transmitted infections while there are over 600,000 teen pregnancies per year.

Link to the study undertaken by Laura Widman and her team:http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2468098

Link to Vincent Guilamo-Ramos' editorial:http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2468100


 

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