Birth Control

Our guest is Dr. Sarah E. Hill, a professor at TCU in Ft. Worth, Texas. She's seen as an authority on evolutionary approaches to psychology and health, and her new book, which she tells us about, is "This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences." As was noted of this work by Dr. Jolene Brighten (author of "Beyond the Pill"): "[This book] validates what generations of women have suspected since the introduction of the pill--birth control is doing a whole lot more in our bodies than simply preventing pregnancy.

Oklahoma -- sadly, and perhaps unsurprisingly -- is number two in the United States when it comes to teen pregnancy. On this edition of ST Medical Monday, we learn about an organization working to address our state's high teen-birth rate. Our guest is the Executive Director of the nonprofit Take Control Initiative (or TCI). Per its website, the TCI "is a program aimed at reducing the high rate of unplanned and teen pregnancies in the Tulsa area.

On this edition of ST on Health, we speak with Mark Edwards, the co-founder of Upstream USA, a newly formed nonprofit that aims, as noted at its website, "to change healthcare so that all women receive the highest quality services and can conveniently access the full range of contraceptive methods, including IUDs and the implant." Indeed, as stated further at the Upstream USA site: "Fully half of all pregnancies in the United States are accidental.