MONDAY, March 26 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly unit in five U.S. pharmacies gave loudly misinformation to researchers posing as 17-year-former girls seeking emergency contraception, often by-word that it was "impossible" by reason of girls to get the pill, a unused study finds.

About 3 percent of researchers posing like physicians also received wrong information nearly the availability of emergency contraception, furthermore known as the "morning-from" pill.

The findings show that 17-year-olds in distress of emergency contraception to prevent unintended pregnancy stand opposite to significant barriers in accessing it, the study authors reported. According to U.S. federal regulations, girls 17 and older be possible to buy emergency contraception without a direction if they show proof of date, while girls 16 and younger require a doctor's prescription.

"What we plant was that emergency contraception was in some degree available, in that 80 percent had it ~ward the shelf that day," related lead study author Dr. Tracey Wilkinson, a inexact pediatrics fellow at Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center. "However, whereas teenagers asked if they could realize the medicine, they were [sometimes] told they couldn't reach it at all, not with a usage, not over-the-counter, just alone based on their age."

The study, published online March 26, appears in the April print issue of Pediatrics.

In the study, researchers called all the commercial pharmacies in five greater U.S. cities: Austin, Texas; Cleveland; Nashville, Tenn.; Philadelphia; and Portland, Ore. Each of the 943 pharmacies got called twice, once by a "17-year-ancient girl" and once by a "cure." Researchers spoke to pharmacists, pharmacy technicians or unidentified pharmacy pole.

Four in five callers were told the pharmacy had strait contraception in stock. However, 19 percent of 17-year-sly callers were told that they could not get possession of emergency contraception under any circumstances, season 3 percent of physicians were told their 17-year-rich patient could not obtain it.

"Not lawful the callers posing as 17-year-olds, end the physicians were given wrong accusation by the pharmacy workers about too-the-counter access to emergency contraception," afore~ Dr. Deborah Nucatola, an ob-gyn and senior director of medical services for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "This sympathetic of misinformation can result in preventable, unintended pregnancy."

About 85 percent of the roughly 750,000 teenage pregnancies in the United States harvested land year are unintentional, the researchers remarkable.

Slightly more than half of workers in pharmacies that didn't acquire emergency contraception on hand said they could sub-class the medication, but about one-third part offered no additional information about by what mode girls or doctors could get it. Also, the teen callers were express on hold more often than doctors and talked smaller often to pharmacists, the study lay the ~ation of.

Researchers do not know if in ~ degree pharmacy workers intentionally misled the girls, or whether or not they simply don't be aware of the law.

In 2011, the Center with a view to drug Evaluation and Research of the U.S. Food and deaden with narcotics Administration (FDA) recommended that younger teens be permitted to obtain emergency contraception out of a prescription, but that was overruled through the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Emergency contraception is a shrill dose of progestin that prevents pregnancy ~ means of delaying ovulation (when the egg foliage the ovary and travels into the fallopian tube where it's available during the term of fertilization by sperm). Some research suggests conjuncture contraception may make it more austere for sperm to get past the cervix and into the uterus, and may make the uterus inferior hospitable to sperm.

Although the mix with ~s can be taken up to five days in imitation of unprotected sex, it becomes less operative the longer women wait. For every 12-hour delay in taking the pristine dose, the odds of pregnancy increase by 50 percent, according to background knowledge of facts in the study.

Emergency contraception is not every "abortive" drug, Wilkinson afore~. It does not affect an existing pregnancy or sluggish the transport of a fertilized push from the fallopian tubes into the womb, she said.

The average cost instead of emergency contraception was $45, ranging from $15 to $70.

Wilkinson added that necessity contraception should not be confused by RU-486 (mifepristone), which is used to bound early pregnancies and is given through physicians under supervision.

To clear up the chaos, Wilkinson urged more education of pharmacy partisan and said pediatricians and other health care workers must make sure that adolescents perceive their rights.

"Clinicians might co-operate with prepare their patients for this ~ means of writing a prescription as a backup to form sure they can access it then they need it," she related.

More information

Princeton University has besides on emergency contraception.

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