Plan B

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Anyone else think Plan B will get GROSSLY out of hand? I think alot of 18 years old will be running to walmart every sunday nite!

Also, cant it hurt a woman' s body if she takes Plan b too many times?

"Plan B" has been around for a long time. I used it myself in 1998. All you had to do was walk into a Planned Parenthood or similar clinic and ask for it. It's basically like the Mini Pill, progestin only or NorQD, etc.

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Specializes in Women's health & post-partum.

My husband raised an interesting question. What if the person proposing to purchase the kit is A) a male or B) an obviously post-menopausal woman? If it's available without an RX, can the pharmacy refuse to sell it?

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Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.
My husband raised an interesting question. What if the person proposing to purchase the kit is A) a male or B) an obviously post-menopausal woman? If it's available without an RX, can the pharmacy refuse to sell it?

I had never thought about the possibility of an older woman purchasing Plan B OTC for a young teen. I guess that doesn't worry me too much because that would at least indicate that the young teen has confided in a trusted adult and is receiving some guidance.

What does concern me, and what I have been unable to find an answer to is this: Will men over the age of 18 be allowed to purchase Plan B? If so, I am concerned about the potential for older men to abuse young girls and then give them Plan B to prevent possible pregnancy.

One of the pediatricians I used to work with refused to prescribe any contraceptives for women under the age of 18 unless they brought their mothers with them to the appointment. At first I thought this was terribly short-sighted and prevented young girls from acting responsibly to prevent pregnancy. He then told me that he adopted this policy when he learned that one of his young patients was being abused by a male teacher who "put her up to" going on OCs so that he didn't have to fear that a pregnancy would shed light on their "relationship".

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Specializes in Cardiac.
I have always had one area of confusion about the "a fertilized egg IS life" way of thought. There are times when an egg is fertilized, but due to the timing of its fertilization (e.g., it's too low in the uterus), by the time it's ready for implantation a few days later, it's already "fallen" out of the uterus. Is that an abortion? Also, if you take any NSAID (ibuprofen, celebrex, naproxen, etc.), it can have the same effect as Plan B - decreasing the chances of implantation of a fertilized egg. Does that mean NSAID's need to be controlled/labels added?

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Thank You for bringing this up! Lots and lots of things can inhibit the fertilized egg from implanting. If that means it is an abortion then their are a lot of women aborting blasts around here. So women of childbearing age, if's it's been 2 weeks since your period, don't take ibuprofen as it can prevent ovualation, and if it's been almost a month since your last period don't take ibuprofen as it may impair implantation. :uhoh3:

It's been said that at least 30% of all pregnancies end without the woman even knowing as they just got washed out with the next period. Should we live in a bubble to prevent this from happening? Sheesh! When are people jsut going to mind their own business over other people's bodies?????

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Thank You for bringing this up! Lots and lots of things can inhibit the fertilized egg from implanting. If that means it is an abortion then their are a lot of women aborting blasts around here. So women of childbearing age, if's it's been 2 weeks since your period, don't take ibuprofen as it can prevent ovualation, and if it's been almost a month since your last period don't take ibuprofen as it may impair implantation. :uhoh3:

It's been said that at least 30% of all pregnancies end without the woman even knowing as they just got washed out with the next period. Should we live in a bubble to prevent this from happening? Sheesh! When are people jsut going to mind their own business over other people's bodies?????

WELL PUT!

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What does concern me, and what I have been unable to find an answer to is this: Will men over the age of 18 be allowed to purchase Plan B? If so, I am concerned about the potential for older men to abuse young girls and then give them Plan B to prevent possible pregnancy.

One of the pediatricians I used to work with refused to prescribe any contraceptives for women under the age of 18 unless they brought their mothers with them to the appointment. At first I thought this was terribly short-sighted and prevented young girls from acting responsibly to prevent pregnancy. He then told me that he adopted this policy when he learned that one of his young patients was being abused by a male teacher who "put her up to" going on OCs so that he didn't have to fear that a pregnancy would shed light on their "relationship".

I would guess that men will be able to purchase Plan B OTC. After all we can buy Tampons. Seriously, I think that if a pharmacist or other provider has suspicions that a patient is being abused mandated reporter laws would come into play and that these concerns should be reported to authorities. (Check and credit card payments would ID the purchaser.) My 15 year experience with offering treatment to sexual offenders tells me that most of them would not be organized enough to use Plan B as a means of hiding their illegal activities.

Was the incident reported to law enforcement?

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Specializes in Corrections, neurology, dialysis.

I heard on the news this morning that, yes, males over the age of 18 can purchase plan B.

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Thank You for bringing this up! Lots and lots of things can inhibit the fertilized egg from implanting...... Sheesh! When are people jsut going to mind their own business over other people's bodies?????

I guess about the same time YOU do.

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Specializes in Cardiac.
I guess about the same time YOU do.

Uh....good one.:uhoh3:

I think the last time I heard someone say that I was in 4th grade.

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Specializes in OR.
Thank You for bringing this up! Lots and lots of things can inhibit the fertilized egg from implanting. If that means it is an abortion then their are a lot of women aborting blasts around here. So women of childbearing age, if's it's been 2 weeks since your period, don't take ibuprofen as it can prevent ovualation, and if it's been almost a month since your last period don't take ibuprofen as it may impair implantation. :uhoh3:

It's been said that at least 30% of all pregnancies end without the woman even knowing as they just got washed out with the next period. Should we live in a bubble to prevent this from happening? Sheesh! When are people jsut going to mind their own business over other people's bodies?????

Excellent post with some valid points made..I think it's funny how once arguments are made based on science and not just emotion, the flaming commences. Like I said before, an unplanned pregnancy can happen to anyone, even if you're using condoms. I think that sometimes, it's less scary to think that it won't ever happen to you, only the "bad" girls.
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Specializes in LTC.

I'm curious about the idea that PlanB induces abortion through not allowing a fertalized egg to implant. From what I read it seems as though PlanB first tries to prevent fertalization, but when that doesn't happen has the mechanism to prevent implantation. Isn't this the same thing as oral contraceptives?

When fertalization occurs both prevent implantation. With PlanB there is just a higher chance that fertalization has occurred.

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I guess about the same time YOU do.

Umm....what exactly do you mean by that? I didn't heard anything in cardiacRN's statement that demanded anything of you and your body.

To add to the discussion regarding women using Plan B as "birth control" as being judged as irresponsible: there is also a significant population of women who aren't able to get effective BC (that is, more effective than condoms - e.g., the pill) because of potential health contraindications - I've seen tons of women denied an OCP rx because of, say, high BP on a given day, or because they're over 35 and smoke a few cigarettes a day; however, most of these women can safely take EC. So to second what others have said - you never know another woman's life story or the circumstances that have brought her to the point of needing EC, even if it does appear to be "too frequent" by some peoples' standards.

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