Sex Infections Found in Quarter of Teenage Girls

Wow, this is such a frightening article. A full 1 in 4 teenage girls 14-29 have sexually transmitted diseases. Unfortunately, there is no breakdown of age within this range.

As a dad with a daughter and a son, I am constantly conscious of how our sexually stimulated society seems to be sending sex messages all the time (Have you looked at Facebook recently under the “how do you know this person” section. “Hooked up” is one of the possible options.) I’d love to stick my head in the sand, preach abstinence frequently and hope they don’t become of the 25%. Sadly, the reality is that we’ll probably have a longer “birds and bees” discussion years ahead of when my parents sheepishly passed me books that filled in blanks.

With many of these diseases life-threatening (HIV and HPV among the worst), talking about boundaries and options is more important than it was ten years ago, or even last year.

The first national study of four common sexually transmitted diseases among girls and young women has found that one in four are infected with at least one of the diseases, federal health officials reported Tuesday.

The two most common sexually transmitted diseases, or S.T.D.’s, among all the participants tested were HPV, at 18 percent, and chlamydia, at 4 percent, according to the analysis, part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

[From Sex Infections Found in Quarter of Teenage Girls – New York Times]