In Puerto Rico the local association of obstetricians and gynecologists has launched a new attack on Zika. Because Zika primarily is a problem for pregnant women, the doctors are trying to reduce the number of pregnant women by offering free contraception across the island to any woman who wants it. "We have had ... historical barriers to contraception in Puerto Rico for a long long time," says Dr. Nabal Bracero, the driving force behind the initiative and the head of the local chapter of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Puerto Rico Department of Health, Bracero's group is distributing modern contraceptives to doctors' offices across the island.
For women who are already pregnant, all doctors can offer is to monitor the women. There's no treatment, no cure, no magic bullet to protect the developing fetus from potentially devastating birth defects. Yet Bracero says birth control use remains quite low in Puerto Rico. "We have a 65 percent unplanned pregnancies [rate] compared to 50 percent in the States," he says. This new free contraception program helps women to delay their pregnancies if that's what they decide to do. A key part of the program is that doctors are not just handing out condoms and birth control pills — which Bracero calls low-efficiency, low-compliant methods. The program is offering women more expensive and long-lasting implants and intrauterine devices in addition to pills or condoms. "We are trying to empower women who don't want to conceive, because they just don't want to or because they are afraid of conceiving with a Zika threat," he says.
