Emergency contraception can be used by women after sexual intercourse in an effort to prevent an unintended pregnancy. Roughly one-half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended. The FDA first approved emergency contraceptive pills in 1998,but there is evidence of limited expend of hormonal contraceptives for emergency contraception since the 1960s. Now, there are at least four brands of emergency contraceptive pills; most are available over the counter for women aged 17 and over. Although insertion of a copper intrauterine device can be used for emergency contraception, or this report focuses only on emergency contraceptive pills. This report describes trends and variation in the expend of emergency contraception and reasons for expend among sexually experienced women aged 15-44 using the 2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth.
Source: cdc.gov